Kaido said:Part of it too is that we don't have a lot of confirmed information. They can't confirm that the plane was actually reprogrammed before the call (or at all), it's just speculation until they find the plane and look at the black box.
Did you see his flight simulator? He did it himself. Dual 7970 Radeon cards, at least 5 or 6 monitors, etc.
Some data had been deleted from the flight simulator found at the home of the pilot, Hishammuddin said. Forensic work is under way to try to recover it, he said.
They're saying information was deleted from the flight sim now:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/19/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
Um wasn't it reported last night that the ACARS transmission at 1:07 contained the information that someone had entered a new route in the FMS?
If that is correct then the plane's route was amended anywhere from 12:37 am to 1:07 am. The signoff with ATC came at 1:19 am with no mention of diverting the plane from its original route
Hadn't read that, is that confirmed?
Could the plane have crashed someplace and kept responding to pings anyway?
Probably not. The pings tell us two things: 1) that the plane has power; and 2) that because it had power, it was likely intact. That still doesn't answer the biggest question of all, however: What happened after the pings stopped?
I thought you posted it last night??
Is there any position component with the last sat ping?
A chart released by the Malaysia government showed the aircrafts range of possible positions based on the distance traveled by an electromagnetic ping detected by a satellite over the Indian Ocean at 8:11 a.m., at which point, apparently, the plane was still airborne but nearly out of fuel. It consists of two arcs (shown here in red), the northernmost of which goes from the northern border of Vietnam through western China to the eastern portion of Kyrgyzstan and includes the Chinese province of Xinjiang, heartland of the Uyghur ethnic minority.
I think the ACARS only gives engine maintenance data
The faint ACARS signal at 8:11am suggests that the airplane was still airborne
As of 8:11am, the plane would have only had 30 minutes of fuel remaining
This, no?
Here is more on that
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-flight.html?_r=0
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101501652
No, not really. I used to work for the company that developed and hosts the ACARS system. I routinely sent ACARS messages to flight crews that would range from simple ATC instructions to something like hey you left your wallet at home. Its basically a text messaging service.
It would really depend on what ACARS service the airline subscribed to. From the news reports it would seem as though they were getting routine status updates from the aircraft. Since they were over the ocean it would appear that those ACARS messages were being sent through INMARSAT (satellite) rather than over typical VHF/VOR frequencies. That would be the "pings" that they were able retrieve.
Separately, Rolls Royce provided a similar service that would send status reports of the engines. Again, from the news reports, it would appear that Malaysia declined that service since they were getting status updates through ACARS. It would also appear that RR was still able to retrieve the "pings" from that service although it did not contain any information - they were just able to determine that the engines were on. (sort of like roaming on a cell phone)
Why would it have to still be airborne? It would just suggest that the aircraft still had power.
Thats not true either. The plane had the capability of flying up to 8 hours but that would depend on how the fuel was consumed. Climbing to 45,000 feet and descending to 23,000 would consume more fuel than flying at their optimal cruise altitude of 35,000. If you believe the flying under the radar theory then the plane would consume way more fuel dropping the range of the aircraft dramatically.
Regarding ACARS, does it submit identifying information for the airplane? Can they spoof it if they want to dive-bomb a city somewhere for a terrorist attack?
I would think that would be too much work - slipping a mickey into the pilot's coffee would do the trick without anyone suspecting anything. Rolls-Royce said the plane flew for at least 5 hours, which would be a long time to have the cabin door locked without any communication from the pilot to the crew or passengers. Plus the satellite picked up a faint ACARS transmission at 8:11am, about 30 minutes before the plane would have run out of fuel, so that would have been nearly 8 hours of flight time of hiding the pilot from the crew. I think it boils down to 4 scenarios:
1. Malfunction
2. Suicide
3. Missile takedown
4. Theft
Malfunction makes the most sense to me right now - say the smoke kills everyone onboard & the autopilot flies until it runs out of fuel. Suicide also makes sense, based on the current information that the plane was reprogrammed before the goodnight call was made. Nobody saw or has claimed a missile attack or other takedown method, so I'd lean towards ruling that out. Theft is a possibility, although the coordination would be somewhat difficult, but if the plane was reprogrammed ahead of time & they did low-flying radar-avoiding maneuvers, then it's possible.
Did you see his flight simulator? He did it himself. Dual 7970 Radeon cards, at least 5 or 6 monitors, etc.
so you're saying... there was a fire big enough to knock out crew + passengers but not big enough as to allow the plane to continue flying for 7 hours.
Even without assuming it was flown for maximum fuel economy, it can glide for quite a distance when fuel runs out. I don't think the area is as limited as we'd like to believe.Unfortunately, the data is not more specific than that. As of 8:11am, the plane would have only had 30 minutes of fuel remaining, so that limits the search field somewhat, but it's still an enormous area to sift through.
Investigators looking at the flight simulator taken from the home of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah have discovered that some data had been erased from it, Malaysia's acting transportation minister said Wednesday.
Hishammuddin Hussein didn't say what had been deleted, but simulation programs typically store data from previous sessions for later playback. He also did not say who might have deleted the data.
The deletions are not necessarily evidence of ill intent: Removing files from a computer is usually an innocent act repeated millions of times a day around the world.
But experts consulted by CNN said it's relatively unusual to delete such data from a simulator: The files are extremely small and are often kept by desktop pilots to gauge their progress, said Jay Leboff, owner of HotSeat, a simulator manufacturer.
"It would be suspicious to me, because there's no need to do it," he said.
Yup. Smoke kills or knocks everyone out. The passenger oxygen masks only work for 15 minutes and mix cabin air in, so they're not much good in a fire. The pilots have the better masks, which would enable them to change course. Or the plane could have depressurized. Happened to a Learjet back in 1999:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_South_Dakota_Learjet_crash
That plane lost cabin pressure and knocked everyone out, but continued flying for hours until it crashed.
Even without assuming it was flown for maximum fuel economy, it can glide for quite a distance when fuel runs out. I don't think the area is as limited as we'd like to believe.
so it also knocked out all comm and redundancies?