Malaysia Jet missing-Officials conclude crash in Indian ocean/all lives presumed lost

[Travis Munroe]

I havent followed a thread like I have this one in quite some time. Assuming the plane is found where 2 people believe they saw something, the theories as to why it ended up there will make this thread even more interesting.
Im hoping it is found tomorrow in said spot for the victims families sake! Losing a loved one would be hard enough, not knowing how, where, why, etc would make someone borderline insane!

[Manhattanboy]

Can someone please explain why a pilot or someone else should be able to manually turn off an aircraft's transponder? Shouldn't a transponder always be "on"?

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

Can someone please explain why a pilot or someone else should be able to manually turn off an aircraft's transponder? Shouldn't a transponder always be "on"?

Transponders get turned to the "off" position or "standby" when the aircraft is not on the active runway. This keeps the radar clutter to a minimum for the tower and arrival/departure controllers (and probably some other reasons too).

It was only light aircraft that I flew but here was the procedure we followed with the transponder:

-fire up the engine
-once the electronics were fired up we'd move the transponder to the "standby" position
-call up ATC and get your unique 4 digit transponder code and input it into the transponder
-only once pulling onto the active runway for takeoff the transponder would be moved into the "on" position

Upon landing once we pulled off the runway you'd switch it to "standby" again.

I did fly one plane that had an auto setting for the transponder, and upon lifting off it would automatically switch itself on. But you could still turn it off if you wished.

[oilyfan]

Additionally the flight crew has the ability to manually pull the circuit breakers for some systems. For example in the Silk Air 185 crash it is believed the pilot pulled the circuit breakers for the CVR and the FDR before piloting the aircraft into the ground.

[Bigtime]

Yup, even if the transponder didn't have an off setting there will be a circuit breaker that can be pulled.

[normtwofinger]

What I don't get is why didn't Malaysian Airforce scramble jets after the plane turned off the transponder and went off course.

[oilyfan]

Originally Posted by normtwofinger

What I don't get is why didn't Malaysian Airforce scramble jets after the plane turned off the transponder and went off course.

Because it left Malaysian airspace and entered Vietnamese airspace, wonder why Vietnam air defence did not ping them.

[normtwofinger]

Right. But Malay Airforce could have alerted Vietnam.

[Senator Clay Davis]

This is certainly becoming one of, if not the most bizarre stories of my lifetime. I mean its literally now like finding a needle in a haystack. Theoretically there are only a few places it can actually be, yet there isn't even the slightest clue of where it is. I mean it took two years to find that Air France flight's blackbox that disappeared in the Atlantic, but that was obviously a much bigger search radius. This one in theory isn't that big. Just unreal right now.

[T@T]

It also supposively returned over Malaysian airspace but the airforce just tracked it on primary radar.

[JonDuke]

Originally Posted by normtwofinger

Right. But Malay Airforce could have alerted Vietnam.

The last transmission was the pilot confirming the hand-off to Vietnamese air space.
The plane was not yet in range of Vietnam controlled airspace. The pilots last words to the Malyasian controller was 'All right, good night'.
Vietnam should of been expecting MH370 to contact them once they reached their airspace. But the call never came. Source

[speede5]

I think it's only bizarre because of the rate at which information and speculation travel these days. 10, maybe 15 years ago you wouldn't be glued to a forum or 24 hr news site waiting with baited breath for every snippet of info.

We expect instant results and the fact is the technology still has a lot of holes. It's a big world out there, and even in a relatively small area it is easy for a big object to disapear.

Next time a plane flies overhead at a few thousand feet think about how close you would have to be to the ocean surface to see pieces of it, if it in fact was scattered.

It seems odd that not one piece of something would have been found floating somewhere yet, but this didn't happen off the coast of the US or Canada, they probably don't have near the response and search capabilities of north america.

I'm rambling, but I just think we have been conditioned to expect imediate response in these situations and if we don't get it there has to be an outside force opposing resolution (conspiracy).

I have some SAR training and although I haven't done any sea searches I have seen a few training videos and it is remarkable how hard it is to find floating objects in an ocean. You really have to be right on top of them.

[Ragz]

I have no knowledge of this but just a question, What would happen if the plane (or any plane) did not stop ascending?

[oilyfan]

This is a huge mystery. With AF447 there were a lot more clues, the ACARS messages, and debris was found relatively quickly. With MH370, nothing...

[woob]

They had a guy on CBC last night who said he plotted out all the possible areas the plane could have flown to, based on fuel amounts/etc. and I think it came to something like 8 million square miles (was half listening).

[oilyfan]

Originally Posted by Ragz

I have no knowledge of this but just a question, What would happen if the plane (or any plane) did not stop ascending?

Essentially it would stop ascending because the engines would not provide enough thrust at high altitude and the wings would not provide enough lift because of air density. It would probably yo-yo a bit before running out of fuel. In addition if on autopilot the plane would never keep ascending because it would exceed the flight envelope programmed into the auto pilot.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by Ragz

I have no knowledge of this but just a question, What would happen if the plane (or any plane) did not stop ascending?

Eventually it would stall, and without pilot input it would most likely lead to a crash. Oh and the yo-you thing oilyfan mentions too, remember trying that in our sim at the flight school.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by Ragz

I have no knowledge of this but just a question, What would happen if the plane (or any plane) did not stop ascending?

Eventually the air would become too thin to support the weight of the aircraft. The plane would stall.

Keeping in mind it's an aerodynamic stall, not mechanical. So the engines don't stop; the plane loses lift. At that altitude, it would be easy for a skilled pilot to recover from that kind of stall. However I cannot see any skilled pilot continuing to climb to the point of stalling.

[MikeN]

There is news out today that a Oil working saw the plane and reported it via Email. Saying it was on fire in the air.


http://globalnews.ca/news/1202910/oi...o-down-report/

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Eventually the air would become too thin to support the weight of the aircraft. The plane would stall.

Keeping in mind it's an aerodynamic stall, not mechanical. So the engines don't stop; the plane loses lift. At that altitude, it would be easy for a skilled pilot to recover from that kind of stall. However I cannot see any skilled pilot continuing to climb to the point of stalling.

Oh yeah?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinnacl...es_Flight_3701

The accident sequence started when the pilots performed several non-standard maneuvers at 15,000 feet, including a pitch-up at 2.3g (23 m/s²) that induced a stall warning. They set the autopilot to climb at 500 ft/min to FL410. This exceeded the manufacturer's recommended climb rate at altitudes above FL380. In the attempt to reach FL410, the plane was pulled up at over 1.2g, and the angle of attack became excessive to maintain climb rate in the thinner upper atmosphere. After reaching FL410, the plane was cruising at 150 knots (280 km/h), barely above stall speed, and had over-stressed the engines.

The anti-stall devices activated while they were at altitude, but the pilots overrode the automatic nose-down that would increase speed to prevent stall. After four overrides, both engines experienced flameout and shut down. The plane then stalled, and the pilots recovered from the stall at FL380 while still having no engines. At that altitude, there were six airports within reach for a forced landing. This led the pilots to pitch nose down in an attempt to restart the engines, which requires a dive sharp enough to attain the required 300 kt for a windmill restart to make the blades in the turbines windmill at 10% N2 (turbine rotational speed). The captain did not take the necessary steps to ensure that the first officer achieved the 300-knot or greater airspeed required for the windmill engine restart procedure and then did not demonstrate command authority by taking control of the airplane and accelerating it to at least 300 knots.