Random General Headlines

[Hazekiah]

OLDEST HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR
WINS OSCAR 1 WEEK AFTER DEATH

[miss k bee]

Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane still missing

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26502268

If not down to human error the implications for the airline industry could be big.

[Fixer808]

6.9 magnitude earthquake shakes California. California yawns and tells tectonic plates to come back when they grow a pair.

[onthewall2983]

Two of the SXSW victims went to my hometown high school. One sadly passed away, the other is described as being in critical condition. It was very sad seeing two teachers I was friendly with with this loss hanging in their minds.

[Deepvoid]

6.9 magnitude earthquake shakes California. California yawns and tells tectonic plates to come back when they grow a pair.

They came back and look at who needs to grow a pair now. That guy ducked under his desk so fast you would have thought it was a 7.4 earthquake.

[reseen_lamenti]

Westboro Baptist Church founder, Fred Phelps Sr, has died.

[allegro]

Yeah, it's already in the Passengers thread.

[elevenism]

Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane still missing

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26502268

If not down to human error the implications for the airline industry could be big.

So i've read a lot of news on this, and a few things stand out: the plane turned way off course, and right before that happened, the plane's communications systems were turned off. Redundant systems...yet the plane was still flying, so it hadn't blown up or anything, right?
Also, there were no calls from the plane (like the ones people received on 911,) and making things even crazier, people have reported trying to call passenger's phones and the phones are still ringing!

Did someone steal this plane and land it somewhere else?
Did the pilot want to kill himself and didn't mind taking people with him?
Some people think it was a terror attack but no organization (to my knowledge) has taken credit.
This shit is mind boggling!

[allegro]

It was hijacked. Somebody turned off the transponder. Malaysia has totally blown this, from day one. I've seen pretty interesting theories that the plane was stolen by pirates, and the passengers are all dead and disposed of. That's a really expensive, really high-tech plane. That was a regular red-eye route. Thus far, we've seen no investigation of cargo, either.

It could also be at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. A bungled terrorism attack. Definitely not an accident, though.

I guess the cell phones are still ringing only because of a switching mask; it doesn't mean the phones are actually ringing. Reports I've seen said it's likely that no calls were made from the plane either because the cell coverage was so bad at that location and/or altitude or all the passengers were dead or unconscious due to deliberate cabin depressurization.

[miss k bee]

So many theories. Now saying possible debris found in southern Indian Ocean. Malaysian authorities now saying the plane was carrying lithium ion batteries in the cargo which are known to catch fire. I am not thinking terrorism or hijacking anymore.

[allegro]

So many theories. Now saying possible debris found in southern Indian Ocean. Malaysian authorities now saying the plane was carrying lithium ion batteries in the cargo which are known to catch fire. I am not thinking terrorism or hijacking anymore.

It continued to fly for more than 4 hours after the transponder went off. The Rolls-Royce engines continued to send data to a satellite for more than 4 hours. The Indian Ocean was off its course to the scheduled destination. The plane was turned around from its projected flight path. Somebody changed the pre-programmed flight path. Only a trained pilot could do that. Malaysia authorities admitted the cargo but also believe the plane was commandeered. A fire would have caused pilots to put out a distress call. There was no distress call.

[miss k bee]

Maybe the fire damaged the equipment to send out the distress call. If it was hijacking terrorism t surely some group would have claimed responsibility now unless information is being supressed. Also could be millitary accident.

[allegro]

Maybe the fire damaged the equipment to send out the distress call. If it was hijacking terrorism t surely some group would have claimed responsibility now unless information is being supressed. Also could be millitary accident.

A fire could not damage the transponder unless the whole plane crashed. That didn't happen, as the plane continued to fly - in the wrong direction - for more than 4 hours after the transponder was switched off. All experts have acknowledged that the transponder was deliberately turned off. Hijack does not necessarily mean terrorism. The hijackers could be on the bottom of the Indian Ocean, dead with the crashed plane.

[theimage13]

and making things even crazier, people have reported trying to call passenger's phones and the phones are still ringing!

There is absolutely nothing crazy about this. It's fairly normal and has been beaten to death in the news coverage.

I, for one, have stopped reading articles about this. Stories are recirculated; headlines are changed a dozen times a day without the article actually being any different. Every tiny little lead gets enlarged to overblown proportions, only to prove useless shortly after.

Someone tap me on the shoulder when if the plane is found.

[miss k bee]

If hijackers did it they would have to be acting alone and not part of a larger group as they would of taken responsibility by now.

[allegro]

Yup. They could have acted alone and are now dead or they could be a hijacking pirate ring. But, it was NOT an accident. And we may never find out why this happened, and we may never find the plane.

[Baphomette]

A couple of people at Starbucks were talking about DoD employees being on the plane and that those people were "cloaking technology specialists." (Their words.)
I did a quick search and, of course, a lot of conspiracy sites popped up but the info was a little different. 20 of the passangers actually worked for Freescale Semiconductor, which has a contract with the DoD to develop new stealth technologies, and Reuters has described them as "key employees". One of the theories that stuck with me (altho' I don't know if it's at all plausible) suggests Freescale was doing a test of a new system which interfered w/the operation of the plane and caused it to crash. I haven't been following the story closely so I don't know if this has been discussed and/or debunked. Just found it interesting.

[theimage13]

A couple of people at Starbucks were talking about DoD employees being on the plane and that those people were "cloaking technology specialists." (Their words.)
I did a quick search and, of course, a lot of conspiracy sites popped up but the info was a little different. 20 of the passangers actually worked for Freescale Semiconductor, which has a contract with the DoD to develop new stealth technologies, and Reuters has described them as "key employees". One of the theories that stuck with me (altho' I don't know if it's at all plausible) suggests Freescale was doing a test of a new system which interfered w/the operation of the plane and caused it to crash. I haven't been following the story closely so I don't know if this has been discussed and/or debunked. Just found it interesting.

If they were "key employees," their employer would not have allowed them all on the same flight (and I'm not even getting into conspiracy theories about testing shit out, I'm talking about just a boring old flight to get from Point A to Point B). Any company that has any clue what it's doing has strict rules about who can be on board the same plane or travel together for this exact reason.

[miss k bee]

Another theory not so interesting

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03...ectrical-fire/

[allegro]

Another theory not so interesting

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03...ectrical-fire/

Yeah, my air traffic controller husband and his aviation buddies are laughing at that one, too.

Now go read this.

The problem with ^^ that guy's (Wired) theory is that somebody would have had to reprogram the autopilot to turn around and go THE WRONG WAY, as we now have a bunch of data showing that the plane turned left and headed in the wrong direction. The flight plan for that plane -- the autopilot flight plan -- wasn't to turn around and head the other way. You don't make "an immediate turn" and then end up on "autopilot." That's not how autopilot works. He seems to imply that he knows a lot about aviation, but then he says this shit:

"A hijack code or even transponder code off by one digit would alert ATC that something was wrong."

This is total shit. On 9-11, this never happened. At all. The transponders were manually turned off on all of the 9/11 planes (still totally and easily possible) and no distress signals were sent. Because the pilots were DEAD. In the Pennsylvania flight, the passengers tackled the hijackers and the plane crashed into a field.

There's also the "pilot suicide theory." They did take the one pilot's simulator from his house, and they said there was "deleted data" (although it appears to be deleted top scores from games).

[miss k bee]

My mum's son in law who works in ATC too posted that to FB not saying it's right just another theory.

[allegro]

There's this one from a pilot:

"OK, how about the following scenario:
(1) Pilots put in several new coordinates to fly around some turbulence, but they mix up lat and long (rookie move, but I know I have done it too). This adds a way-point way north of Norway and one way north of Finland.
(2) Fire or depressurization hits, knocking out everyone.
(3) Plane turns toward hard left on schedule and then turns again more to the north….crashing somewhere in the Himalaya (in a remote location)."

This theory from another pilot:

"The evidence, thin though it is, suggests that this is a mass-murder and suicide by the co-pilot, with an attempt to wipe out all evidence.

The course changes were programmed before the co-pilots’ last message (according to ACARS). This required training. It could not have been done without the captain knowing it. The captain was a last minute addition to the flight, so it’s unlikely that they were working together. The captain was probably killed or locked out of the cockpit.

The copilot waited until the ATC handoff, said his “goodbye”, then shut down the transponder and probably ACARS, flight entertainment (satellite phones) and data recorder at that point.

The plane went to 40,000′ and was depressurized to neutralize anyone else within seconds. Pilots have a pressurized oxygen mask, no one else does.

The plane then followed the autopilot aiming for the deepest point underwater, or the furthest point from land, making recovery as hard as possible.

After two hours, the cockpit voice recorder looped over the events and at this point the co-pilot could pull the circuit breaker for that too.

When the fuel almost ran out, he could put full power on the throttle and aim down to have the strongest impact. This would have the greatest chance of destroying the data recorders AND the emergency radio locators (which is why we didn’t get a distress signal)."

But them somebody countered:

"In 777′s they have pretty advanced FDRs. They can record for many hours, have their own power, and are in the tail of the aircraft physically away from the pilots."

[allegro]

See also this from a pilot:

"If If If …

1. Okay, the plane had a catastrophic failure (of whatever kind), the pilots followed their training, tried to fix the problem and get back to an airport for an emergency landing, seems like the most plausible START of a theory to me.

BUT:

1. Why did they overshoot the targeted airport?
2. If they were overcome, and the plane was already set to the return course, then they kept flying until they ran out of fuel. So why isn’t the search focused on that flight path to its logical end?
3. How did the plane, with incapacitated pilots, make the altitude changes? Unless…
4. If there were a fire, would the pilots go to the high altitude to put the fire out, then return to a low altitude, but by that time the damage was done to the electronics (including comms) and control and the plan was disabled? Then could it still be able to fly for 7 additional hours? Or would it go straight down on its return to lower altitude?

Alternative “Hijack” theory, a la 9/11; The cockpit is breached by hijackers who knew how to operate the plane, just like the 9/11 hijackers. THEY killed the pilots and took control of the plane, THEY executed the “u-turn”, but then they lost it. Maybe THEY were counter attacked, explaining the up and down and erratic flying. BUT that theory doesn’t explain how 230 passengers couldn’t get a message out (cell towers notwithstanding–how about Sat phones?) AND it doesn’t explain the 7 hour flight. UNLESS, again, the hijackers are incapacitated and AGAIN the flight continues on the programmed vector so AGAIN the search should be focused on that flight path.

Where am I wrong?"

And this one:

"1. $1,000,000 question. Supposing that they were fighting fire or whatever while over land, then why make so many course corrections in the Malacca Strait without turning around and hitting up Langkawi Island once again? If they had time to input waypoints, why not input Langkawi Island as a way point?

2. Not enough time & fuel. The logical end in that direction would be on the 40 degree arc around the Immarsat satellite above the Arabian sea midway between India and Somalia. Their westward movement is vectoring directly towards that geo-synchronous location. That yields the DR Congo or Central African Republic on the other side of the arc. In the 5.5 hours they remained airborne, they would not have either time or fuel to make it to the 40 degree point on the west side of the satellite.

3. A properly trimmed aerodynamic vessel will self-correct to some degree. Those would appear as gentle mid-course corrections and not drastic swings in heading nor elevation.

4. Need to get the timeline correct. Either the pilots are capable or incapacitated. If capable, would they point to the sky? Oxygen is a major contributor towards sustaining/accelerating a COMBUSTION fire. Perhaps high altitude could starve such a fire of its oxygen. Flames may turn to embers but I seriously doubt they would completely extinguish a fire. Fires take a long time to go out.

**Speculation alert, not a proven fact ->** On the other hand, I imagine that the principal contributor to an ELECTRICAL fire is power supply more so than oxygen. If so, then altitude change and oxygen starvation wouldn’t have such a significant affect on a fire.

Continuing with your scenario, supposing pilots unable to manually or hydraulically influence speed or direction due to disabled electronics/communications or incapacitated pilots. Plane should continue flying its westward heading, buffeted by winds pushed one direction or another. Constant speed would keep it mostly level and if it veered up or down, the trim would level it out once again.

Two caveats are:
1. If an engine flamed out, that would make a significant impact on projections.
2. If the descent from 45K to 27k was too steep and the airliner gained too much speed, then its possible that the trim couldn’t catch up fast enough to make a difference prior to splashdown."

[elevenism]

i think it would be a TRIP if pirates stole the plane. I THINK there's some precedent for this, if i'm not mistaken.

One thing that occurred to me is that it's VERY possible that a terrorist group HAS taken responsibility for it but it's been kept quiet because of the damage it would do to the airline industry.
In fact, i find it highly unlikely that no one has claimed responsibility for this shit, because terrorist groups are forever claiming responsibility for shit that they didn't even do.

And don't get me started on 9-11.

Much like 9-11, there are likely innumerable layers of bullshit piled upon this incident by this government or that, this corporation or that, that we may NEVER know wtf happened.

But yes, in my mind, there is definitely SOME degree of cover-up here because we HAVENT heard of a terrorist group taking credit...in the time that i've been sitting here typing this, i have become POSITIVE that at least one group has.

[cynicmuse]

Here's a facebook post from the Ministry of Transport of Malaysia describing how Immarsat used the Doppler effect to track the plane to the southern Indian Ocean. It's kind of amazing that they can track a 100Hz-200Hz variation of a 1.5GHz signal. I hope they find the plane sooner rather than later, because that's the only way they'll ever figure out what happened... though the CVR will probably be useless since it only records the last two hours and whatever happened happened before that.

I also wonder if it's time to upgrade the pinger on the black boxes; the battery only last 30 days. It seems that when a plane disappears over the middle of the ocean (which has happened twice in the last 5 years when you include AF 447, though in that case, they at least had an idea of what went wrong from the ACARS messages), it takes a lot of time and effort to find it.

[allegro]

The pinger is hard to find when it's really far under water.

[theimage13]

Stupid question, and maybe this has been addressed by the media...

Black box recorders exist.
Communications systems exist.
Data servers exist.

Is there not a way to interface all of these so that, in the event that a plane crashes in the middle of fucking nowhere, all of the data would already have been transmitted and stored at a secure facility instead of being in a tiny little box at the bottom of the ocean, thousands of miles from land?

(I mean, isn't that a system that could be implemented going into the future?)

[allegro]

That capability does not yet exist. It would certainly cost a lot of money.

[theimage13]

That capability does not yet exist. It would certainly cost a lot of money.

More than what it cost to develop and deploy an arsenal of body-scanning machines and enforce "you can't bring your water bottle" rules?

Side note: I've had bottles of water pulled out of my bag several times in the last few years. I don't bother to take them out unless I'm flying through busy airports with long lines; I just take my chances. Hey - I've accidentally left my knife in my backpack multiple times; maybe my H2O will sneak by as well...

[allegro]

More than what it cost to develop and deploy an arsenal of body-scanning machines and enforce "you can't bring your water bottle" rules?

Well, but, see, the TSA is paying for that. The individual airlines and jet companies (all over the world, in a combined effort) would have to pay for something you're proposing. Not only would it involve retrofitting all current jets with this technology, it would involve satellite technology that does not yet exist.

I saw some people on TV who were asked why the Indian Ocean isn't scanned more often by satellite and they said there's just nothing interesting going on, there, and it costs too much money and, well, who's gonna pay for that? As it is, they were LOOKING for stuff when they finally did find the wreckage pieces, otherwise satellites are trained only where companies pay to look for stuff.