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#27 Mar 11 2014 at 1:28 PM Rating: Excellent
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Kuwoobie wrote:
All this and I'm thinking-- how hard would it be for an aircraft to simply disable its communication hardware and change coarse-- either landing safely or crashing somewhere they would not expect it to be?
The plane was within radar range was my understanding so any change of course would have been tracked. An airliner is really only going to disappear from radar if something bad happens to it; like it not being airborne anymore because its wing fell off or something.

Edited, Mar 11th 2014 12:29pm by someproteinguy
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#28 Mar 11 2014 at 2:23 PM Rating: Excellent
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Yeah, a Boeing 777 has a radar cross section that is highly visable, up to 120 miles away from a ship based radar on the middle of the ocean with no obstructions. The area where the dissappearance occured was covered under civilian and military radar, satilite tracking, VOR transponder returns and possibly weather sat radar if anyone goes looking for it that way. On the older style rotating radar arrays that would be more likely to be found in that area, you're looking about an average of 15 seconds for the dish to make a full sweep. So that's "airplane is going straight" sweep, "airplane is turning left" sweep "airplane is gone".

So let's say the airplane was going around it's top speed of 590 MPH at the stated cruisng altitude of 30,000 feet. That's about 865.3 feet per second. At top speed with a catestrophic elevator failure it could have impacted in a dive in 34.6 seconds. That's assuming constant thrust on the way down and ignoring gravity acceleration, but it's a reasonable number. For an older style radar, which maybe had as slow as 45 second sweep, that could have been enough time. The other option is that the plane exploded mid air, and vaporized into such small pieces that it didn't show on radar, which would have required a massive bomb on nuke scale to pull off. Even 30 seconds should have been enough time for some maydays to be sent. Both pilots were experianced enough and using a new enough plane that if nothing else that should have been automatic.

It almost certanly has to be underwater, and it almost certanly had to have been mostly intact until it hit the water otherwise there would have been a larger radar return briefly from falling debris. About the only thing I can think of that would cause that would be the tail or wings falling off the aircraft somehow in such a manner as to also render the elecitrical / radio systems instantly inoperable. Plane blew up, broke up, or otherwise ceased existing. The fact that they are also not getting a transponder signal from the black box is also troubling. Unless it is in very deep water they should hear something from that even if the rest of the plane shreaded on impact. Those things are incredibly resiliant.

Edited, Mar 11th 2014 1:24pm by Kaolian
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#29 Mar 11 2014 at 2:27 PM Rating: Good
Conspiracy theory: Russia bombed it to distract us from Ukraine Smiley: tinfoilhat

It worked.
#30 Mar 11 2014 at 2:32 PM Rating: Excellent
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This.
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#31 Mar 11 2014 at 3:01 PM Rating: Good
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The reports of Malaysian radar saying the plane traveled 500 miles in another direction suggest a couple of scenarios to me.

1 Hijacked and ran out of fuel in the long distance detour to wherever they were being forced to go, this is the most likely I think though it requires someone with knowledge of the plane's electrical systems to disable the various tracking methods (transponders etc.) Doesn't necessarily mean terrorism, could just be a wigged out pilot.

2 Electrical system failure resulting in an incorrect heading which was stabilized by the pilots but left them without a reference point or electronics to correct their heading until some catastrophic failure finished them off, lack of fuel with no land in sight or further electrical problems perhaps. This is less likely as I expect there are some pretty heavy redundancies and training to handle this type of situation. I mean, they must have a manual compass at least...

All assuming, of course, Malaysia know what it's talking about.
#32 Mar 11 2014 at 3:07 PM Rating: Excellent
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The total distance the plane flew looks to be a good amount less than the distance to its intended destination. Seems hard to believe they ran out of fuel unless there was a leak or something?
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#33 Mar 11 2014 at 3:43 PM Rating: Good
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My own personal theory based off of absolutely no evidence whatsoever is that a decent sized meteor impacted the cockpit of the airplane. This would have not only instantly killed the pilots, but also destroyed pretty much everything you would need to fly the plane and send distress calls. The plane crashed and the majority of it's bits are now at the bottom of the ocean.
#34 Mar 11 2014 at 3:51 PM Rating: Excellent
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My own personal theory is to always assume aliens until proven otherwise; you'll be right far more often than other people will care to admit.

Edited, Mar 11th 2014 3:06pm by someproteinguy
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#35 Mar 11 2014 at 3:57 PM Rating: Excellent
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Have we done the "Female Asian Pilot" joke yet? Cause it probably was.
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#36 Mar 11 2014 at 3:57 PM Rating: Excellent
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Conspiracy theory: Russia bombed it to distract us from Ukraine Smiley: tinfoilhat


Silly Catwho, the Russians didn't bomb it...

It was stolen!!!

By terrorists....

With funding by the Chinese....

Who are in cahoots with Russia to become the next global super power!!!!!!!!!

Smiley: tinfoilhatSmiley: tinfoilhatSmiley: tinfoilhat
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#37 Mar 11 2014 at 4:48 PM Rating: Good
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So there's some news about 777's maybe having a fatal flaw that causes rust and/or tears in the hull near the antenna after several years that in the worst case may cause the plane to decompress and break apart.
#38 Mar 11 2014 at 5:19 PM Rating: Excellent
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Yodabunny wrote:
The reports of Malaysian radar saying the plane traveled 500 miles in another direction suggest a couple of scenarios to me.

1 Hijacked and ran out of fuel in the long distance detour to wherever they were being forced to go, this is the most likely I think though it requires someone with knowledge of the plane's electrical systems to disable the various tracking methods (transponders etc.) Doesn't necessarily mean terrorism, could just be a wigged out pilot.

2 Electrical system failure resulting in an incorrect heading which was stabilized by the pilots but left them without a reference point or electronics to correct their heading until some catastrophic failure finished them off, lack of fuel with no land in sight or further electrical problems perhaps. This is less likely as I expect there are some pretty heavy redundancies and training to handle this type of situation. I mean, they must have a manual compass at least...

All assuming, of course, Malaysia know what it's talking about.


The 777 has a huge fuel reserve. It could have flown another 1,000 miles beyond its rated destination. An electrical fire in 777 wiring is not unheard of. they could have lost communications and heading computers. the aircraft controlls are hydraulic but use fly by wire so something major enough firewise could have done it eventually, but the critical control wires are generally separate from the data and instrumentation runs to prevent fires from taking out the circuits, and there are redundant pathways for the control and engine runs themselves. To cut all of them you would need to basically chop and separate the aircraft, destroy the wing box, or take out the cockpit itself. The instruments in the cockpit are in separated metal panels, with redundant runs. There isn't enough flammable in them by design to allow the entire thing to catch fire without some sort of accelerant, and even if one side fried, the co pilot station would still function, along with the emergancy control stations at the hydrolic panels in the cargo holds, etc.

Turin wrote:
My own personal theory based off of absolutely no evidence whatsoever is that a decent sized meteor impacted the cockpit of the airplane. This would have not only instantly killed the pilots, but also destroyed pretty much everything you would need to fly the plane and send distress calls. The plane crashed and the majority of it's bits are now at the bottom of the ocean.


Meteor large enough to kill an airplane would have shown on a radar track. Maybe it was made of antimater though!

His Excellency Aethien wrote:
So there's some news about 777's maybe having a fatal flaw that causes rust and/or tears in the hull near the antenna after several years that in the worst case may cause the plane to decompress and break apart.


There are a few problems with the initial 777 design which have been revised over the years, but they all required mandatory FAA inspections if the aircraft ever entered the US, and they were fairly major and well publicized, so they likely would have been fixed. The most major one was the flaw in the engine fuel-oil heat exchangers, but nothign structural. The entire structure pretty much set the record for aircraft hull strength in a civilian airliner. I saw that one article where the guy speculated that the antenna port for the satcom array near the tail caused catestrophic failure. That's just a fairing though. even if that entire structure ripped away, the rudder and elevator control surfaces are still intact and undamaged. It would explain communications being out, but not the eventual crash. Definitly wouldn't have caused decompression, and again, even if it did, the cockpit is sealed post 9-11, and the crew has independant air bottles.

If the aircraft was under power, the track it was heading according to malaysia would have been an odd choice.
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#39 Mar 11 2014 at 6:07 PM Rating: Excellent
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His Excellency Aethien wrote:
So there's some news about 777's maybe having a fatal flaw that causes rust and/or tears in the hull near the antenna after several years that in the worst case may cause the plane to decompress and break apart.



Well there's a lovely thought.

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#40 Mar 11 2014 at 6:08 PM Rating: Good
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Dread Lörd Kaolian wrote:
His Excellency Aethien wrote:
So there's some news about 777's maybe having a fatal flaw that causes rust and/or tears in the hull near the antenna after several years that in the worst case may cause the plane to decompress and break apart.


There are a few problems with the initial 777 design which have been revised over the years, but they all required mandatory FAA inspections if the aircraft ever entered the US, and they were fairly major and well publicized, so they likely would have been fixed. The most major one was the flaw in the engine fuel-oil heat exchangers, but nothign structural. The entire structure pretty much set the record for aircraft hull strength in a civilian airliner. I saw that one article where the guy speculated that the antenna port for the satcom array near the tail caused catestrophic failure. That's just a fairing though. even if that entire structure ripped away, the rudder and elevator control surfaces are still intact and undamaged. It would explain communications being out, but not the eventual crash. Definitly wouldn't have caused decompression, and again, even if it did, the cockpit is sealed post 9-11, and the crew has independant air bottles.

If the aircraft was under power, the track it was heading according to malaysia would have been an odd choice.
Hey, I know next to nothing of airplanes so I'm just repeating what the news told me. The article itself was full of maybe's and if's and worst case scenarios so I don't think it's too likely. Maybe both the pilot and the copilot got a heart attack at the same time?
#41 Mar 11 2014 at 6:12 PM Rating: Excellent
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Maybe they both had the fish.
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#42 Mar 11 2014 at 6:22 PM Rating: Excellent
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Screenshot


Maybe it was just the wrong day.
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#43 Mar 11 2014 at 6:23 PM Rating: Good
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Samira wrote:
Maybe they both had the fish.
Ha.
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#44 Mar 11 2014 at 6:30 PM Rating: Good
Samira wrote:
Maybe they both had the fish.


A two step food chain, in that case.
#45 Mar 11 2014 at 11:54 PM Rating: Excellent
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Maybe you'll be the one to find the missing plane: because crowdsourcing is cool.

I actually may have to try that...

Edited, Mar 11th 2014 10:55pm by someproteinguy
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#46 Mar 12 2014 at 6:53 AM Rating: Good
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The strong evidence suggesting the plane changed, or was off-course without communicating with traffic control leaves open the possibility that the jet was stolen. Perhaps the crew, or some of the crew was involved.

...or it just crashed in the ocean or the jungle, but probably the ocean as all electronic signals seem to be muted or absent.
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#47 Mar 12 2014 at 9:31 AM Rating: Excellent
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They're doubling the search area now...

Quote:
"At this stage in the investigation and search and rescue, I would have expected to see by now a much more defined understanding of what the route was, where the plane was headed and a narrowing of the search consequent upon that," he said on CNN's "New Day."

Indeed, the lack of a clear direction prompted Vietnam to say Wednesday that it's pulling back on its search efforts until Malaysian authorities come up with better information on where to look for the plane.


Quote:
Then, in another shift, Malaysian authorities said at a news conference Wednesday that radar records reviewed in the wake of the plane's disappearance reveal an unidentified aircraft traveling across the Malay Peninsula and some 200 miles into the Straits of Malacca.

However, it wasn't clear whether that radar signal represented Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Gen. Rodzali Daud, head of the Malaysian Air Force, said at the news conference.


So we have no idea where the plane is. It could maybe be anywhere, and maybe not be. This keeps getting better and better. Smiley: rolleyes
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#48 Mar 12 2014 at 11:02 AM Rating: Good
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I just hope they all died on impact...
#49 Mar 12 2014 at 12:19 PM Rating: Excellent
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I just hope they all died on impact...


The kindest scenario is that they were all unconscious from oxygen deprivation, and then died on impact. Smiley: frown
#50 Mar 12 2014 at 12:23 PM Rating: Excellent
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Or splashed down rather safely, survived, and are sitting in lifeboats at the moment.

Though, that becomes a little less of a good thing if we don't find them soon. Smiley: um
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#51 Mar 12 2014 at 12:27 PM Rating: Excellent
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I'd imagine the kindest scenario would be they're all in Tahiti.

It's a magical place.
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