How in the world can we lose an entire jumbo jet today?

Now CNN is saying the NYT is reporting there were radar returns that had the plane climbing from 35,000 (a normal cruising alt.) up to 45,000'.

The service ceiling is only 43,100' on Delta's 777's, but if they were light you could easily climb to 45,000. Then it descended to 23,000', then it climbed again.

Of course no pilot would do this...UNLESS...you were fighting for control of the airplane and yanking back and forth on the control column.

Also, they are showing a ground track that zig zags a bit, after it crossed over Malaysia.

So...if what they are now reporting is accurate (and I give it 50/50 at best) it sounds like it was being hijacked, and flown by amateurs, who may have been looking for their destination. If so, somebody trained them on shutting off the transponder.

The question is, why?

What were they trying to do, crash it and kill people on the ground, or steal it, or just get to somewhere else? (Thailand, India?)

It would be very strange if they were able to overpower two pilots, and then fly the airplane on the path CNN is showing now. I guess we won't know what was really going on until we hear the **** voice recorder. I just hope they can find it in less than two years!

It takes a little while to climb 10,000 feet doesn't it? And then to drop from there over 20,000 feet? That's a really slow struggle.

Several years ago the golfer Payne Stewart's plane had a CO problem, and it flew until it ran out of fuel. There may have been an escort that witnessed it.

It happens.

Payne's plane slowly lost it's pressurization, the pilot(s) passed out, and it flew on auto pilot until it ran out of gas and crashed. There were F16's that intercepted it to see what was going on. The reported fog on the inside of the windows, which indicated loss of pressurization.

http://www.airsafe.com/stewart.htm

Jake, depending on how heavy/light the airplane was, it could climb at 1-2,000 feet per minute from 350 to 450. So maybe 5 minutes. But much less if you 'zoomed' it up there by pulling back harder, but you'll bleed off airspeed if you do that, and you won't stay up there long before you run out of airspeed and come right back down, which might be why they dove down to 230.

Hmmm...that would be an interesting clue if it is true. I'm still not sure I buy the hijacking theory from the altitude changes - 5 Minutes is a really long fight in a cabin (allowing time for some folks to certainly join in). That could still be a single event that left the plane in a sharpish nose up attitude when it stalled at that crazy altitude and pitched back down...but it probably wouldn't have traveled too far if that were the case. Too high for a bird strike, weather too good for hail. Cracked windshield(s) nobody noticed? ... I guess the Aliens still have this one for now.

And I still stand by my first topic...if the engines are globally capable of continuously broadcasting performance data to Rolls Royce every few minutes, why in the world can't the plane send some similar but specific location data? Granted, I have the benefit of hindsight, but this seems like a really big engineering duh-huh.

I agree Jake, it should be able to send position/speed/altitude/heading data to a satellite every 2 minutes or so...but then you'd have to install sat com capability to every airliner flying. And you'd have to put up more satellites, to monitor every square inch of the planet.

Right now less than 25% of the world airline fleet have Sat Com, and there are lots of 'dead spots' all over the globe. Then you'd have to have someone monitor all that data, from 40,000 flights per day, and you'd have to have some way to store all that data, and here's the biggest obstical:

WHO is going to PAY for that??

As with most things, it comes down to money. More safety costs Mo'money, and no Airline CEO or Politician wants to spend that money.

What's the trigger point in that awful scenario (Stewart)? I'd hate to be the guy making the call, or pulling the trigger; but would also hate to see it crash into a major populated area.

The Coast Guard has a hard enough time figuring out drift patterns when a boat goes missing, and they only deal with two dimensions of forces. Can't imagine how difficult this job must be right now in Malaysia.

Mike

By trigger point, do you mean who decides to shoot it down? And when?

I'm guessing if it was heading towards Washington, DC, they would have shot it down. Heading towards Montana, not so much.

I'm very confident that the solutions already exist, and it sadly is all about the money.

But, while we're already on the wish list portion of the discussion; who else is stunned that there isn't a remote control override available yet? After what happened on 9/11, and seeing what the military drones can do (remotely flown from under a mountain on the other side of the planet), I'd say this is long overdue as well.

Mike

Yes, do they brief/counsel you guys on that, or are you even allowed to discuss it?

I don't think DC is the only place with lives worthy of saving. And, I mean that as a caring human being, not a political troll.

Mike

Yeatbut....those jackasses in DC think THEY are the most important people on the planet, so they want to be

Protected

.

But the people in Montana?

The clowns in DC couldn't care less.

Here's what Sully had to say about the Malaysia flight:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-26572575

There's nobody to hit in montana. Seven phone calls later almost everyone would be out of the way. lol

Sully is such a good talker. He sounds really intelligent and manages to say stuff while maintaining dignity. He doesn't say anything that's not factual, doesn't blame, and he doesn't bite on the latest

facts

. That's a cool news set too.

Right now Pierce Morgan has some clown on who is telling everyone how to get down into the E/E compartment, where all the circuit breakers are!

Thanks CNN!

Al Queda must be LOVING all this great info for taking over and disabling a 777!

That would make hijacking/terrorism very easy, and make TSA searches even more worthless.

As I said earlier, the satellite coverage would have to be increased to have a comm link with every flight. Also, as the Iranians proved a couple years ago, they can hack a remote control system and take over a drone, and land it in Iran. It would only be a matter of time before some goofballs hacked a remote control system to take over a flight and land it elsewhere, hold it for ransom, sell it back to the owners.

Think Somali Pirates, but taking airplanes full of people, instead of big ships.

Ummm, yeah...no. I'm up for a $1,200 spot tracker (which is about 10X our cost) mounted in plane in a manner that is really tough to disable that broadcasts an id,lat,long,heading,and speed every 2 minutes. Seriously....that's not that much data.

OK, so you install a unit which is going to broadcast all that info, but what/who is going to receive this data out in the

Dead Zones

around the world?

Here's more speculation:
http://news.msn.com/world/missing-plane-piracy-theory-gains-more-credence

I have some doubts about the accuracy of altitudes reported by the Malaysian Military...

It may have just stayed at 35,000' and the radar returns were so weak, they thought it was at 45K, and 23K, and then back at 35K, but it wasn't.

The part that concerns me most is the zig-zag track, if that really happened, someone was alive and turning the airplane, as if they were looking for a place to land it. That could have been the pilots, going back to the

smoke in the *

scenario.

Or it could have been hijackers, who were looking for their secret island hide-away complete with a paved airstrip!

We won't know until we hear the * voice recorder.

I found it!
777-300 for sale - Vietnam

Timbo,

Regarding hijacks, I have the impression that some commercial pilots are now allowed to carry side arms. Does this apply to international flights?

Nice!

Everybody pitch in a few bucks, we can fill the belly with hulls and masts and use it to go to regattas all over the world!

That's a US Domestic only program, and it requires a week long training program to get certified, at your expense. The guys who do carry in the US are not allowed to take their guns out of the country. Remember this incident?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/26/pilot.gun/index.html

We do have Federal Air Marshals who fly on select International flights however. When they arrive into another country, they have to put their guns/ammo in lock boxes and turn them over to the local authorities while they layover, then pick them up on the way out. I don't think any other country, except maybe Isreal, has an 'Air Marshal' type program.

If this turns out to be a hijacking, I've got to wonder about motive, and destination. Especially since it was flying a zig-zag pattern after 3 hours of going straight west, after the initial turn.

I still think all the Malaysian radar data, both track and altitude, is highly suspect, but the week they wasted looking in the wrong ocean is not going to help find any debris field. It'll be widely scattered by now.

<img src="<>/laugh.gif" alt="laugh" title="laugh" height="15" width="15" /> we occasionally hear of young police officers doing the same thing, running a speed trap gets boring at times so they have a play with the sidearm......
hey presto instant ventilation hole or dash replacement time
<img src="<>/laugh.gif" alt="laugh" title="laugh" height="15" width="15" />

It's getting stupider by the minute, with all the CNN BREAKING NEWS and their self appointed Experts weighing in, and the Malaysian Government trying to save face, and and and....

I'm still going with Aliens, or snakes!

OR...they had a fire in the E/E bay and were over come by the smoke/fumes and it went into the ocean, and all the Malaysian Radar nonsense is exactly that....

OR...they were hijacked. Someone mentioned that two of the 9-11 hijackers came out of Malaysia, I don't spend enough time in Singapore to know what their political issues are, but it might be that some anti government group wanted to make a statement.

However, I would think if that were the case, we would have heard some group claiming responsibility by now.

The most far fetched theory is, someone took it over (or the Capt. with the home simulator was in on it) and landed it somewhere and is going to use it as a guided missile against...someone.

Malaysian Triangle

another possibility........

Can someone in the air-industry verify ??? Timbo <img src="<>/wink.gif" alt="wink" title="wink" height="15" width="15" />

http://www.onlythebest.co/news/world/what-really-happened-to-mh370/

I've not heard about the cracks and the antennae issues, but then Delta doesn't tell the pilots much about any maintenance issues, they just fix it. The article does point out that that airline might have financial issues and not have fixed any cracks.

Here's the part that is nonsense, if all the other normal * warning systems are working:

As the cabin slowly loses pressure all inhabitants including the crew would be susceptible to the effects of hypoxia (loss of oxygen, symptoms include confusion, hallucination, disorientation and unconsciousness to begin with, followed by death). A slow loss in cabin pressure would gradually impair and confuse pilots, (due to loss of oxygen), causing pilots not to realize the need for oxygen masks until it was too late. As the crew slowly fall unconscious, this would then explain the

mumbling

heard from MH370 pilots by another aircraft.

Every commercial airliner has a

Cabin Altitude Warning

system to prevent this exact scenario. Remember all those Safety Demo's you've had to suffer through, where the Flight Attendants tell you,

Should the cabin change unexpectedly... (rise up to 11,000' or higher) oxygen masks will drop from ceiling panels over your seats. Pull the mask to the full extent of the tubing, to start the flow of oxygen. Place the mask over your nose and mouth and continue to breathe normally...

Watch the video, at 3:17.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eduNjwNvcH4

OK, the passenger O2 system is completely automatic. As soon as the cabin altitude gets above 11,000' (at a cruising altitude of 35,000' the cabin altitude would normally be at about 7-8,000' if the pressurization sys. is working normally) the O2 masks will drop, by themselves, if the system is working properly. The passengers will have 15 minutes of O2 available through those masks.

Meanwhile, in the *, as soon as the cabin altitude reaches 10,000' (ten thousand, not eleven, so we have time to fix it or descend prior to the masks dropping) we get a very loud Master Caution/Warning horn, and big red lights in your face. You CANNOT miss this, you cannot sleep through it, as long as all systems are working normally, and they usually are.

Now, we actually practice this scenario in the simulators once a year. The Pilots have real oxygen masks available to them, not the cheese you get in the back. We have real masks with microphones in them, so we can talk to ATC, and smoke goggles, so we can see to fly, and our O2 will last an hour, at 100% O2, not the mix of ambient and O2 you get in the back. As soon as we get a cabin altitude warning, we descend to a lower altitude, so YOU can live. We could stay up at altitude for an hour, you in the back, would be quite dead however. So we practice what we call an

Emergency Descent

.

Here's what our O2 masks look like (not a 777, but mask is pretty much the same) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRihhryndDc

With speed brakes extended, we can easily come down at about 6,000' per minute without hurting the airplane (over-speeding it) . You will feel it in your ears, no doubt! If we are at 35,000', it only takes us about 4 minutes to get down to where nobody needs the O2 masks, ie. 10,000', well less than the 15 minutes of O2 your cheesy little masks in the back will give you.

So, the pilots black out on a slow leak? Doubtful. BUT...if there were a fire, with toxic smoke and fumes, the pilots would have their hands full, and they might not have been able to see too well, thus the zig zag course, and they may have been overcome.

BUT...when ever there is a fire on board, we are trained to land IMMEDIATELY! They would have done a 180 and descended back into Malaysia, try to find any runway, what ever is closest. Get it on the ground ASAP and let the local Fire Dept. deal with it. To me, that is what their initial actions looked like. They turned and flew towards the nearest suitable airport. That says smoke/fire to me.

The scenario in the article above, where nobody knows the airplane is unpressurized, would only be plausible if BOTH the cabin alt. warning syst. were inop AND the Passenger Mask Drop system were inop...and if the Pilots were Idiots. As an experienced pilot, you know when your ears are popping, you know what thin air tastes like and you'll know when you start breathing hard. It feels like you are skiing at 11,000', you are out of breath, but you are just sitting there, so why are you out of breath? First thing I check is the PSI. It's highly unlikely, unless Malaysia Air does NO maintenance on their airplanes...and the pilots were morons.

How safe is the 777? There was a brief flurry of alarm when it emerged that the Federal Aviation Administration had issued an Airworthiness Directive after inspectors found corrosion in one model of the 777 that could have led to a structural failure and loss of cabin pressure. It turned out that the Malaysian 777 was of a model not affected.