'Contact lost' with Malaysia Airlines plane

[Lysander]

A sensible view of what might have happened from a pilot, looking at it from the pilot's view and discounting all the speculative conspiracy theories:

https://plus.google.com/106271056358366282907/posts/GoeVjHJaGBz

OK so it was a fire and he was trying to land somewhere. So why was the plane up in the sky for another seven hours?

Great read that. Certainly makes a lot of sense.

No, it doesn't. Otherwise they wouldn't be looking for the damn thing in Kazakhstan.

 

[Life's a bath]

OK so it was a fire and he was trying to land somewhere. So why was the plane up in the sky for another seven hours?

dont think you read this part..

"What I think happened is that they were overcome by smoke and the plane just continued on the heading probably on George (autopilot) until either fuel exhaustion or fire destroyed the control surfaces and it crashed. I said four days ago you will find it along that route - looking elsewhere was pointless."

 

[Amp34]

And why was the transponder turned off 15(?) minutes before the last verbal communication? It also doesn't tally with the navigating a route through marked waypoints and the location of the last immarsat ping.

It would have sounded pretty good when we first heard about the left turn but it hasn't stood the test of time.

 

[Lysander]

dont think you read this part..

"What I think happened is that they were overcome by smoke and the plane just continued on the heading probably on George (autopilot) until either fuel exhaustion or fire destroyed the control surfaces and it crashed. I said four days ago you will find it along that route - looking elsewhere was pointless."

So they turned the transponder off because there was a fire, then spoke to ATC and told them everything was all right? Don't you think that's two rather crucial pieces of information that they'd have wanted to impart?

 

[Energize]

if an electrical fire started in the transponder electronics you would definitely want to turn them off in flight

If the fire has already reached the fire point turning it off won't make the blindest bit of difference so there doesn't seem much point. And by evacuating the transponder of air fire would be impossible in the first place.

Absolute and service ceiling are not the same though. It can cruise at upto 43,100ft but could go higher. But not fully laden and not very quickly.

Right, but the plane was fully laden with passengers and the claims are of a rapid ascent, so the idea it was flying at 45,000ft is not credible.

 

[leaskovski]

Great read that. Certainly makes a lot of sense.

Yup, seems like the most plausible answer to what happened.

 

[Tuppy_Glossop]

So the turned the transponder off because there were a fire, then spoke to ATC and told them everything was all right?

No, the ACARS went off before last spoken comms. Transponder afterwards.

The question becomes (for one of our pilots) how soon would a pilot expect to be notified of ACARS failure. It isn't really mission critical, so is it watchdogged ?

 

[leaskovski]

Except it's all wrong with what we now know to be fact. If the plane crashed on its way to another airport, it wouldn't have pinged Inmarsat 7 hours later...

If the pilot was overcome by smoke, then the autopilot would have kept the plane going for as long as it could. The fire might not have brought the plane directly down, but smoke can take people out.

 

[Lysander]

No, the ACARS went off before last spoken comms. Transponder afterwards.

The question becomes (for one of our pilots) how soon would a pilot expect to be notified of ACARS failure. It isn't really mission critical, so is it watchdogged ?

ACARS was manually disconnected though, wasn't it.

If the pilot was overcome by smoke, then the autopilot would have kept the plane going for as long as it could. The fire might not have brought the plane directly down, but smoke can take people out.

Doesn't explain why none of the passengers or crew were able to call anyone. After knowing that the plane was way off course with no word or communication from the captain I'd be calling out.

 

[leaskovski]

ACARS was manually disconnected though, wasn't it.



Doesn't explain why none of the passengers or crew were able to call anyone. After knowing that the plane was way off course with no word or communication from the captain I'd be calling out.

True.

I get the feeling we will never find out what happened as they will probably never find the plane.

 

[ElliorR]

True.

I get the feeling we will never find out what happened as they will probably never find the plane.

So you think it's, Lost?

 

[Life's a bath]

So they turned the transponder off because there was a fire, then spoke to ATC and told them everything was all right? Don't you think that's two rather crucial pieces of information that they'd have wanted to impart?

How do we know it was turned off and not taken out by a fire brewing below them? when they actually found out there was a problem they shut everything off straight away hence the 14 minute delay between the system shutdowns?

 

[dannyjo22]

dont think you read this part..

"What I think happened is that they were overcome by smoke and the plane just continued on the heading probably on George (autopilot) until either fuel exhaustion or fire destroyed the control surfaces and it crashed. I said four days ago you will find it along that route - looking elsewhere was pointless."

LOL they can put a mask on in 2 seconds. How does fire start in an equipment bay and spread out to the control surfaces. If a pilot wrote that he should give his name so we can make sure we never get on one of his planes.

So they turned the transponder off because there was a fire, then spoke to ATC and told them everything was all right? Don't you think that's two rather crucial pieces of information that they'd have wanted to impart?

Why would you turn a transponder off because of a fire. The boxes are in an equipment bay and you would have no idea it was on fire, what else was on fire so turning it off would be pointless.

And by evacuating the transponder of air fire would be impossible in the first place.
.

Evacuating the transponder of air WTF. How.

Some people have seen far too much passenger 57 and diehard.

 

[mattyg]

Right, but the plane was fully laden with passengers and the claims are of a rapid ascent, so the idea it was flying at 45,000ft is not credible.

Which is why I made this comment earlier. maybe I should have added that the comment was about MH370 Not a B772

Pilots on other forums are saying that it couldn't actually get to 45'000 ft. And that the Radar has a % of accuracy and at the Altitude is way off

My 2nd comment on altitude was regarding the Service ceiling NOT being Finite. So radar reports of 45k feet are inaccurate

 

[Amp34]

From the guardian lI've stream (quoting elsewhere)

In yet another puzzling change of the official narrative, acting transport minister and minister of defence Hishammuddin Hussein revised the time of loss of communications with MH370 from 1.30 am local to 1.19 am, which would be two minutes before the last confirmed radar contact with the airliner that used a transponder to identify it to air traffic control system.
To recap, the official chronology at least until the next update appears to be that at 1.07 am the last (and unremarkable) ACARS transmission was sent from MH370, and that system was subsequently disabled at a time unknown, but which didn’t prevent it sending standby signals to a geostationary satellite over the western Indian Ocean for as long as it remained in flight or on the ground with electrical power running.
At 1.19 the last communication with MH370 was heard by Malaysia ATC which closed with the co-pilot (the airline believes) saying “all right good night”.
At 1.22 the last positive radar identification of the 777 was made using the transponder which identifies jets to air traffic control systems. Following this MH370 did not make its expected contact with Vietnam’s air traffic control system.
The transponder must have been disabled very shortly after 1.22 as no more transponder identified radar contacts were visible on either Malaysian or Vietnamese ATC screens.
These unexplained changes in timings by minister Hishammuddin Hussein threw the media update into a state of confusion for those reporters who have been trying to find consistent sense in the official narrative since regular updates began soon after MH370 ‘vanished’ from regular ATC tracking systems.

So the ACARS could have "died" after the last voice transmission as there is a half hour window between the last signal and when it should have signalled again. That would allow a fire to knock it out after the voice communication, followed by the transponder (or at the same time).

It doesn't solve the apparent movement after the left turn and the last communication at 8:11.

If you had a fire would you set autopilot or would it be more manual? Perhaps after the left turn the plane then drifted north (taking in to account the radar trace) and ended up flying north and intersecting the northern arc. It would have had to get through multiple radars.

If it then ended up bearing south that meant it did a lot of wiggling after passing the potential landing site. To eventually go down around the southern arc.

Neither makes sense, or at least any more sense than deliberate flight to those locations.

 

[Hades]

That link does pose a good theory...

Fire starts in transponder wiring. It goes off. Pilots unaware.
Fire noticed shortly after the handover call.
Pilots pull fuses.
Head towards nearest airport hence left turn.
Climb to 45k to try to starve the fire of oxygen.
Fire overcomes pilots or air starvation puts everyone to sleep.
Plane descends irratically not in control and then flies on for several hours.
Plane eventually crashes into the sea several hours later.

 

[Energize]

Evacuating the transponder of air WTF. How.

Just sealing the unit at the time of manufacture with argon instead of air inside it. Argon is quite a common gas used to prevent fires, any server building for example will use argon gas for fire suppression.

That link does pose a good theory...

Fire starts in transponder wiring. It goes off. Pilots unaware.
Fire noticed shortly after the handover call.
Pilots pull fuses.
Head towards nearest airport hence left turn.
Climb to 45k to try to starve the fire of oxygen.
Fire overcomes pilots or air starvation puts everyone to sleep.
Plane descends irratically not in control and then flies on for several hours.
Plane eventually crashes into the sea several hours later.

Fire burning for 4 hours on the plane, that's not physically possible.

 

[Amp34]

7 hours, last ping was at 0811, 7 hours after the plane went quiet. Autopilot would also have to have gone nuts and swerved quite significantly north or south but not pitched into the sea to hit the arcs.

 

[Lysander]

Just sealing the unit at the time of manufacture with argon instead of air inside it. Argon is quite a common gas used to prevent fires, any server building for example will use argon gas for fire suppression.



Fire burning for 4 hours on the plane, that's not physically possible.

I also love the idea that a pilot sitting at home with Google Earth can solve a mystery which 25 nations, with far more information than we have, can't. Seems ridiculous to me.

 

[balky12]

Not that I have a decent solid theory, but with the fire and it knocking passengers/ pilots unconscious, then flying on auto pilot for as long as the fuel would allow, wouldn't this mean it would be at cruising height (35,000ft?) and surely would have been picked up by many radar posts?