Missing Malaysia plane: 'Oil slick seen'

Missing plane lost, Malaysia says

"Malaysia's prime minister has announced on the basis of new analysis it must be concluded that missing flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean."


From BBC

Should I be worried that I am flying Malaysia Airlines a month from now?

They will probably be the safest to fly by then.

Maybe extra security though, boarding....

I have flown with that airline many times from the mid-1950s to the mid-2000s and I am on record on this thread of saying that I would have no hesitation in flying with them again. But that was my feeling a week or so ago since when my confidence in that airline's management has been shattered by more recent events. Its CEO has publicly lied regarding the plane's cargo and we still do not know exactly what freight that plane was carrying. It and the Malaysian government have deliberately withheld information - and not just on the plane's cargo - claiming that it was a matter of a Police investigation. That would be understandable if they had chosen not to tell the relatives and the press everything but they've also withheld information from the Australian authorities. My guess is that they have something to hide and had hoped to bury certain uncomfortable facts when it came time for them to conduct an air accident investigation. If the plane is ever found in the Southern Ocean, it will be the Australian air accident investigators who will conduct the official enquiry and Malaysia Airlines management and staff may be called as witnesses.

Malaysia Airlines' planes may be fine, airworthy and safe but if there if there's a culture of cover-up and dishonesty in that organisation as exemplified by its CEO, then one's confidence in it as a whole can be questioned. Contrary to what I wrote earlier, I would not fly with that airline for that very reason. There is also the consideration that they may not be in business for very much longer.

If you read this article, you'll see that a Malaysia Airlines A330-300 enroute from Kuala Lumpur to Incheon in the early hours of yesterday morning (24th March) had to make an emergency landing in Hong Kong following a failure in one of its electrical generators.

"It was based on new analysis by British satellite firm Inmarsat, which provided satellite data, and the UK's Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB).

The firms "have concluded that MH370 flew along the southern corridor, and that its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth," Mr Razak said."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26716572

Inmarsat appears to have come up with some pretty remarkable information based on very little raw data but if their engineers' calculations are right, they may have made some fairly ground-breaking discoveries. The aircraft's SatCom unit is a bit like a cellphone, it registers with whichever is the nearest satellite which, in this case, is over the Equator at 64.5 degrees East, iirc (had it continued to Beijing, it would have registered with the Inmarsat satellite over the Pacific). Once an hour, the satellite transmits a "are you there?" 'ping' which the SatCom unit immediately responds to. From data downloaded to Inmarsat from its satellite, its engineers knew the time taken for each round-trip 'ping' and were therefore able to deduce the angle between the satellite and the aircraft. From successive 'pings' Inmarsat knew that the aircraft was heading away from that point on the earth's surface directly beneath the satellite. In other words, the angle between it and the aircraft was increasing as the flight progressed.

The Malaysians were given all this information but chose only to release that part that related to the last 'ping' at 8.11 (MYT).

Over this last weekend, Inmarsat engineers examined similar data from other Malaysian Airlines' 777 flights for several weeks. Their satellite is not geo-stationary, it is, iirc, geo-synchronous and its actual position, relative to a fixed point on the earth's surface, varies slightly due to the earth's movement. Applying Doppler shift principles** (don't ask me how!), they were able to plot a course and from its speed and fuel state that the aircraft was above 30,000 feet from the first right up to the last 'ping' (below 30,000' it would have burnt more fuel and would not have remain airborne for that length of time). Depending on how much fuel remained unused at the time of the last 'ping', the aircraft could have continued to be airborne for up to a further 59 minutes (plus a few seconds).

One thought that's crossed my mind is that it was a deliberate attempt to cause the Malaysian government some very serious embarrassment by a man who, earlier that day, had witnessed the leader of the Opposition being jailed - a man and a party he (the pilot) almost fanatically supported. If that really is the case, then what he did to render his passengers and crew helpless doesn't bear thinking about; his wife and children don't deserve the vilification that would follow.

** Edit: Here's a clear explanation of Doppler Shift as it applies in this case (courtesy of PPRuNE):
Satellite sees a Doppler shift when the aircraft is on a trajectory that brings it closer or further away from it. E.g., if the satellite is 45 degrees above the horizon from the point of view of the aircraft and the aircraft flies at 490 knots and steady altitude directly towards the satellite, and communications between the satellite and the aircraft occur at the frequency of 1.6 GHz, Doppler shift is 1.6e9*cos(45)*(490*1.852/3600)/299792=1903 Hz.

If the same aircraft were to turn either X degrees left or X degrees right, radial speed (the component directed towards the satellite) would decrease, transverse speed would increase, and Doppler shift would decrease.

It's in the Maldives....

http://www.news24.com/Travel/Flights/This-man-says-he-knows-what-happened-to-Flight-MH370-20140328

Another day, another conspiracy theory.

Only two facts are known for sure:

1. The aircraft departed Kuala Lumpur.
2. The aircraft did not arrive in Beijing.

Even then we have to assume that the Malaysians and Chinese are telling the truth. But everything else is pure conjecture including the Inmarsat ping data which, if it is to be believed, would appear to indicate that the plane headed south towards the Antarctic and not northwest. As for it landing in the Maldives or Diego Garcia where it has been hidden, a Boeing 777 is a very large plane and as neither place has a hangar large enough to conceal it, both can be ruled-out.

Are you certain?

Perhaps the plane never took off from KUL, and is parked up in an airport hanger, all the evidence is just a few electronic pings and radar traces, these could easily be faked.

faked for what reason?

That is the big question!

Use Occam's Razor on any conspiracy theory: go for the simplest explanation that fits the facts.

The Interim Report into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines' flight 370 has just been published - here's the full text in the New Straits Times. Following the report's body, copies of the cargo manifests are also given but they're rather difficult to read, being reproduced so small. This one in particular rather debunks the airline's assertion that "a few boxes of Lithium batteries" were on board as cargo.

There were, in fact, 200 boxes of these batteries weighing a total of 2,453.16 Kg - that's over two tonnes! And considering the airline initially denied their existence, that company should be facing some stiff questioning.

I read today that something was found west of Malaysia near India?
This would make sense if something like lithium batteries became problematic and the plane flew on auto pilot (people on board incapacitated) until running out of fuel and ditching.
It was known to have turned to the west once the cockpit signed off east of Malaysia.
West of Perth in Australia sounded strange to me.

Inmarsat offers free airline tracking

UK satellite operator Inmarsat is to offer a free, basic tracking service to all the world's passenger airliners.

The offer follows the case of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared without trace on 8 March.

It was very brief electronic "pings" from Inmarsat equipment on the lost plane that prompted investigators to look for wreckage in the Indian Ocean.

Inmarsat says the free service it is offering would carry definitive positional information.

It would see a plane determine its location using GPS and then transmit that data - together with a heading, speed and altitude - over Inmarsat's global network of satellites every 15 minutes.

"Our equipment is on 90% of the world's wide-body jets already. This is an immediate fix for the industry at no cost to the industry," Inmarsat senior vice-president Chris McLaughlin told BBC News.

Cost is one of the reasons often cited for the reluctance of airlines to routinely use satellite tracking.


http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27369288

I'm deliberating whether to pack the Netflix in. Incidentally the price is going up a quid for new customers

Attention.... Missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370....... Will turn up, when you're not looking for it.