[Kelseecat65]

Originally Posted by gatagato ↗

"Credible lead" moves search to new area



The press conference is scheduled for 14:30 AEDT if i'm correct

Just watched it!! Let's hope this leads to something!!

[gatagato]

An RNZAF Orion spotted debris in the new search area; obviously it could be anything, we'll know tomorrow, as the vessels heading to the area tasked with confirming its nature will reach the spot on Saturday.

[Pyramid_Head]

Just more guessing it seems. Sounds like they're checking every piece of debris in the ocean.

[Clubhouse]

First human eye sightings, lets hope they're positive.

[Clubhouse]

As a 777 pilot I, like many others, have wondered how the 777 would perform in the scenario where the pilots were incapacitated and the aircraft ran out of fuel. I had my ideas but there is nothing like seeing it for “real” so we tried this in a 777-2 full motion zero flight time approved simulator.

We used a zero fuel weight of 175 tonne. We let it run out of fuel at FL 250 in track hold and alt capture. However it would not make any difference what mode it was in as everything would drop out. In real life one engine uses fractionally more fuel per hour than the other and there is typically a difference between main tanks of a few hundred kilos, so we had a 300 kg difference between the contents of the left and right tank.

When the first engine failed TAC (Thrust asymmetry compensation) automatically applied rudder. The speed reduced from 320 knots indicated to 245 knots indicated. It was able to maintain 245 knots and FL250. When the second engine failed the rudder trim applied by TAC was taken out and the trim went to zero. The autopilot dropped out and the flight controls reverted to direct mode. The speed initially came back to 230 knots but then the nose started to lower. The nose continued to lower and the rate of descent increased to 1.2 km per minute, the nose kept lowering and the descent rate increased to 2.29 km per minute with a bank angle that increased to 25 degrees. The speed at this point had increased to 340 knots indicated, above VMO but there was no horn as it was on limited electrics. About this point the RAT (Ram air turbine) chipped in and the CDUs and copilot’s PFD (Primary flight display) came alive. The flight controls stayed in direct mode.The eicas screen was full of messages like pitot heat, flight controls, APU fault (The APU had tried to autostart due double engine failure but failed due no fuel to start it) low fuel pressure etc.

Then with a max descent rate of almost 2.4 km per minute the nose started to slowly rise and keep rising. We had dropped to about FL170 but the nose slowly rose up to 6 degrees pitch up and we started climbing at about 900 m per minute and the bank angle reduced to only 5 degrees. It climbed back up to FL210 at which point the speed had come back to 220 knots and then the nose dropped down again and we were soon back to descending at 2.4 km per minute. So basically a series of phugoid oscillations with bank angle between 5 and 25 degrees and pitch attitude between about 9 degrees nose down and 6 degrees pitch up. It was losing about 2.4 km and then gaining about 3 or 1.2 km with airspeed fluctuating between 220 and 340 knots.

We didn’t watch it all the way down due time constraints and stopped the experiment at 3 km but it was consistent all the way down. Having watched it I can say with certainty that if the pilots were incapacitated and it ran out of fuel there is no way it could have landed on the water with anything like a survivable impact. Just passing on the info.



http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/5...-lost-433.html

[DiamondSmiles]

Originally Posted by Pyramid_Head ↗

Exactly, it's very irresponsible to announce something like this prematurely. It's only going to make it worse on the family's if it turns out to be something else and not the plane.

I realize the families of the missing want to find their loved ones, but, I'm sure they would rather know for sure whether or not something was found from the plane, instead of false hope every couple of days.

[deanmine]

a note from my physics tweets

Over the last few weeks, we have all been assailed with posts about the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which carried 239 people. For those of you who are unaware, it has been announced that fight MH370 ended its journey in the southern Indian Ocean. Since we have yet to find any wreckage of the plane, one my rightly wonder how we are able to announce the planes fate. The answer is rather simple: Math.

The reporting surrounding flight MH370 has been sensationalist and disquieting. At one point, CNN even seemed to be considering whether or not a black hole could have swallowed the plane. Then, when the scientific correspondent responded, she asserted that we know that this can’t be what happened as, “A small black hole would suck in our entire universe.” (black holes are not cosmic vacuum cleaners; even the largest cannot consume the entire universe).

All of this irresponsible and illogical sensationalism was coupled with fear mongering about terrorism and a host of other uncomfortable reporting practices. Given the quality of reporting that surrounded this event, and the fact that no wreckage has been recovered, individuals are understandably skeptical of the announcement that the plane, along with all of its passengers, crashed into the ocean. However, this announcement ultimately rests on sound science.

Inmarsat, a satellite company based in the United Kingdom, utilized a new kind of mathematical analysis to locate the plane’s final trajectory and determine that it was lost in the watery desert of the southern Indian Ocean. It is currently believed that it went down in an area where there is no land upon which the plane could come to rest. Ultimately, this is a zone populated by nothing but underwater volcanoes, and area which hasn’t been surveyed for more than 20 years.

How it Works:

We were able to determine this location as the planes final resting place as Inmarsat is a communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit over the Indian Ocean. Approximately every hour, it sends out a short electronic message to subscribers, and the subscribers respond with a similar signal. Since these satellite “pings” are carried on a radio wave, we can use the wavelength (frequency increase or decrease depending on whether the aircraft is moving towards or away from the satellite) to determine the location of MH370. This is known as the Doppler Effect.

The Doppler Effect is something that everyone is unconsciously aware of. Think of a police siren sounding in the distance. As the siren moves towards you, it has a very high pitch. This is because the wavelength is being compressed. As soon as the siren passed, the pitch drops because the wavelength is being stretched. And by measuring this stretching/compressing, we were able to determine the rough path of the plane



Although these devices eventually stopped responding to the Inmarsat messages, according to the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) MH370 replied a total of six times to these pings (there was another partial response that is being investigated, it is assumed that the attempt was made either outside of the usual time frame or during powerless). So we simply traced the trajectory of the plane to get an idea of where it was. As David Cenciotti notes, this event helped us determine at least two things:

1) Pilots have the power to make aircraft almost invisible to radars. This will have to be addressed in some way, with some system capable to track the plane regardless of the aircrew’s willingness.

2) Black Box data have to be streamed via satellite and stored for the shortest time possible (until the next flight, then automatically erased) somewhere (for instance, in a Cloud Network architecture, to save money and have it immediately available, should the need arise).

Hopefully, we will be able to improve our methods to ensure that nothing like this happens again.

[Clubhouse]

Objects retrieved from ocean in search for missing jet.



Two ships combing the search area off the west coast of Australia recovered a number of objects Saturday, but none were confirmed to be related to the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner, the group leading the search said in a statement.

In addition, a number of aircraft reported sighting multiple objects, including a Chinese plane that spotted three objects in the search area Saturday, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said. A total of eight aircraft were involved in searching about 97,000 square miles Saturday.

Xinhua News Agency said the Chinese military plane Ilyushin IL-76 sighted three objects that were white, red and orange in color. The missing Boeing 777's exterior was red, white, blue and gray.

As of late Saturday local time, there was no confirmation of the Chinese sighting after a helicopter spent two hours searching for the objects, Xinhua reported.

A Royal Australia Air Force P3 Orion also reported seeing objects in the water in a different part of the search area, the AMSA said.

"The objects sighted by aircraft cannot be verified or discounted as being from MH370 until they are relocated and recovered by ships," the AMSA said.



Malaysia Airlines' Beijing-bound Flight 370, with 239 people aboard, lost communication with civilian air controllers soon after it took off early March 8 from Kuala Lumpur International Airport. No emergency signals or distress messages were received before the plane vanished from radar.

A multinational search and recovery effort for the plane has carried on for three weeks.

On Saturday, weather in the search area was "reasonable," the AMSA said. However, visibility was reduced with rain showers.

Earlier Saturday, Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein pledged to continue the search for "possible survivors."

"Even hoping against hope, no matter how remote, of course we are praying and we are continuing our search for possible survivors," said Hussein, who was accompanied by his wife and children as he visited the relatives at a hotel in Putrajaya, Malaysia.

Multiple ships were involved in Saturday's search and an additional five ships were scheduled to arrive Sunday.

The U.S. Navy has sent equipment that can detect pings from the black boxes. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told reporters in Sydney that the equipment would be put on an Australian naval ship soon.

"It will be taken to the most prospective search area and if there is good reason to deploy it, it will be deployed," he said, without giving a time frame. Other officials have said it could take days for the ship — the Ocean Shield — to reach the search area.

Saturday's search was the second in the newly targeted area, after Australian officials shifted their search for the missing Malaysian jetliner Friday, citing "a new credible lead'' about the path of the aircraft and where debris may be located. The new search area is about 1,150 miles west of Perth, Australia, and about 685 miles to the northeast of the previous search area.


USATODAY

[Clubhouse]

There must have been 200 plus life-jackets on board that plane, they auto-inflate on contact with water. I would have thought many of them would still be visible despite the sea conditions

[Kelseecat65]

So, if this turns up to NOT be the area, I wonder what their next move will be.