'Contact lost' with Malaysia Airlines plane

Tefal said:
i think you're right, it may only be the radio transmitter not the lower power sonar ping that runs out, woukldnt have througyht radio woulkd be much use underwater though anyway
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There is no radio transmitter in the black box (FDR). There is a Crash proof recordable device and a Sonar locator beacon. The power supply is designed to switch off and preserve the recorded info upon impact or immersion.

The SLB's battery have a life of approx 30 days this is the guaranteed minimum but generally they go on considerably longer.
 
They only located the black boxes on flight 447 via finding the debris field on the seabed which was close to where the plane was known to have gone down. Don't know where it crashed? Next to no chance of finding it. Ocean current modelling will only go so far the longer it takes to find confirmed debris.
 
touch said:
Or, on the other hand: "Lets save some money and weight by running the media systems off the existing on-board computer hardware"?

Check back through the thread and find the previous discussion on this topic. There were links to the presentation/demonstration of the app which shows the (theoretical?) control it can have over the navigation/autopilot system.

Of course, a lot of people have picked up on this and blown it way out of proportion. The demonstrated app couldnt 'hijack' a plane. It could manipulate waypoints and other navigational stuff, but would only work when autopilot was turned on and couldnt do anything to stop the pilot simply turning the autopilot off again.
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I design secure IT infrastructure for a living. Not to go in aircraft fair enough, but to support transactions worth over a trillion a year. I do know having done implementations in airports that there is an air gap between the airport general operations, and the equipment used to manage the aircraft....approach control etc etc.

I would be the most surprised and disappointed person on the planet to discover there is no air gap between the in cabin entertainment and the primary flight systems. Not least since they are typically developed and designed by third party specialist companies rather than the likes of Boeing.
 
Are they really thinking someone hacked into the Flight systems through the on-board entertainment systems ?

They really are clutching at straws now.
 
Stolly said:
I design secure IT infrastructure for a living. Not to go in aircraft fair enough, but to support transactions worth over a trillion a year. I do know having done implementations in airports that there is an air gap between the airport general operations, and the equipment used to manage the aircraft....approach control etc etc.

I would be the most surprised and disappointed person on the planet to discover there is no air gap between the in cabin entertainment and the primary flight systems. Not least since they are typically developed and designed by third party specialist companies rather than the likes of Boeing.
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AFAIK, boeing have not admitted that this could happen, but they also havnt pointed out that the media systems are separate from the control systems - that seems like it would be a quick and easy way to show this as a fake if true?

You also seem to be making the #1 mistake in security: assuming something is secure because the people who built it should know what they are doing.
 
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MOOGLEYS said:
Are they really thinking someone hacked into the Flight systems through the on-board entertainment systems ?

They really are clutching at straws now.
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Yes, some people are saying that.

I'm not suggesting that's what happened, just that there is claims of security vulnerabilities in this area. (still not anywhere near to getting full control of the plane though)
 
touch said:
Yes, some people are saying that.

I'm not suggesting that's what happened, just that there is claims of security vulnerabilities in this area. (still not anywhere near to getting full control of the plane though)
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I think they might have been watching a few to many Watchdogs trailers... :)
 
If it were a hacking of the plane, we'd see multiple crashes all over the place. What ever group behind it would need to move fast before the security hole was found and patched. Not that anyone with credibility has claimed it yet either
 
touch said:
AFAIK, boeing have not admitted that this could happen, but they also havnt pointed out that the media systems are separate from the control systems - that seems like it would be a quick and easy way to show this as a fake if true?

You also seem to be making the #1 mistake in security: assuming something is secure because the people who built it should know what they are doing.
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Pretty much are 2 seperate systems but there are a certain level of interconnection - often some flight data can be accessed (position, heading, speed, etc.) via the entertainment systems and if there is a picocell onboard it will usually have a satellite backhaul through the same inmarsat link as other flight systems.

There is no way a phone app could be used to take control though - you'd need much more direct access in the first place plus carnal knowledge of the systems in use to even have a chance of exploiting any weaknesses if there are any potential vulnerabilities between the systems (which is highly unlikely).
 
d_brennen said:
If it were a hacking of the plane, we'd see multiple crashes all over the place. What ever group behind it would need to move fast before the security hole was found and patched. Not that anyone with credibility has claimed it yet either
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Thats purely basing it on the 9/11 way of thinking though.

Hijacking of planes and ships is far more commonly about seeking political asylum, monetary gain or negotiating some kind of deal or political matter. Rather than using as a deliberate suicide weapon or putting a bomb on it.

The difference today is that while in the past, passengers on a plane would have gone along with a hijacking, either through fear, or the knowledge that it will probably be fine if the hijackers get what they demand, in today's world, the fear that somebody has taken it to crash into a building is far greater. Thus passengers are more likely to resist in any kind of hijack situation.

So in the case of this flight, it could be that an attempt was made to hijack it, but that went wrong when people fought back. This isn't something I personally believe happened, but its just another possible theory amongst the dozens of other ones floating around which nobody can really answer.
 
touch said:
AFAIK, boeing have not admitted that this could happen, but they also havnt pointed out that the media systems are separate from the control systems - that seems like it would be a quick and easy way to show this as a fake if true?

You also seem to be making the #1 mistake in security: assuming something is secure because the people who built it should know what they are doing.
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No, i'm assuming that its not down to the people that built it, but the multiple levels of assurance built up through internal peer design review, relevant statutory bodies such as the CAA performing their own due diligence before awarding air worthiness certificates and the customers themselves performing a thorough design review before finalizing their first order. I would also suggest that during the actual construction of the prototypes and serial production aircraft these design reviews are backed up with audits to ensure the resulting aircraft is built to design.

We do this in my line of work, this happens, within my industry and the regime of regulation within it. I would assume that since lives are at stake a safety obsessed industry would be no less thorough.
 
Chinese plan has spotted objects:

06:67: A Xinhua correspondent said "searchers saw two relatively big floating objects with many white smaller ones scattered within a radius of several kilometres".

07:35: In a statement, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said it "was advised about the reported objects sighted by a Chinese aircraft". It added: "The reported objects are within today's search area and attempts will be made to relocate them."
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