Malaysia Airlines Flight Goes Missing En Route to China - Flight MH370

[peterhr]

Again, rather than focusing on flight safety, you are focusing on the convenience of the recovery operation.

Please post the studies to which you are referring to.

Perhaps this needs a two stage approach
- the simple one of GPS satellite tracking mandatory on all commercial flights ASAP
- a second one FDR / CVR upgrade for planes 737 size and bigger later ... the later because this would would be much more contentious and would take time to work out what needs doing and to get the necessary approvals. Objections could be reduced by having the uploaded data escrowed - so it can only be retrieved if there is good reason (not employers looking with a fine toothed comb for reasons to fire staff).

Also if FDR/CVRs come in for regular maintenance - maybe they should routinely be upgraded to store much more data

[leedrich]

Satellite Spots New Objects as Weather Slows Flight 370 Search 300 objects of various sizes

[anterian]

I am constantly reading this mantra, " At all times pilots aviate, navigate, and communicate in that order. ". Fine so we need a system which is automatic and completely independent of the pilot, but with access to some or all of the same data and which maintains constant contact with a satellite relay. As to the black box, it's time it was upgraded, I have more data storage capability in my pen drive.

[avox]

If this is a unique case then, presumably, it cannot used as an argument for the general case. So I see no necessity for any new equipment. In any case the only convincing argument for additional equipment is only convincing has a basis in safety.

Another position reporting system does nothing to increase the safety of a particular flight. The only change that these functionality provides is to make the search for the wreckage cheaper and faster.

Pre incident CVR / FDR data might be useful, not as a safety measure for this flight, but, for the safety for aviation in general.

I do not interpret the lack of a mayday as evidence that the VHF system was off. At all times pilots aviate, navigate, and communicate in that order. In fact communication is a low priority. The only reason that, after satisfying the first two requirements, to communicate is to get airspace / clearance.

How about this reasoning:
Something cost the lifes of 239 people of MH370 and we have no idea what.
As long as we do not know what caused the crash, a similar tragedy might cost more lifes.
CVR / FDR is likely to provide insight into the cause.
Since it took so long to find the site of the crash and because of its inaccessible location, the black box might never be found.
A position recording system would have drastically enhanced the chance to recover the CVR/FDR in this case.
Therefore, position recording systems enhance air safety.

[MIT EE]

As an engineer I have nothing against implementing new technology. But I balk at making the plane unsafer in order to make the SAR more convenient. That is just an example or warped priorities.

Position reporting cannot change the pilot work load. Until the plane is bought under control communication is not part of the pilots work load. In any case the satellite link provides no intentions.

Fighters were scrambled during 9/11. There is no evidence that I know of that they could have ever been in a position to shoot either plane down. But the hijackers did disable the transponders. So why would they have not disabled the satellite uplink as well?

"As an engineer I have nothing against implementing new technology. But I balk at making the plane unsafer in order to make the SAR more convenient. That is just an example or warped priorities."

Then, I think you will agree with me that engineering design is about making compromises. The argument you make now is the very argument that could have been made back when black boxes were first mandated (whenever that was), ie, they won't prevent crashes and they will in fact make "the plane unsafer" in as much they have the potential to cause electrical interference, electrical fire and potential to become a projectile etc etc.

So, the question is, where do you draw the line. Does your position require you to be in favor of mandating a removal of the existing black boxes?

[voyager10]

I have wondered if there is any economies in using 'large' passenger a/c for the preliminary search of the Southern Indian Oceans. Say a 777-200LR or similar could economically fly into the area at high altitude. Drop down to 5000 or so and conduct visual searches with many eyes. If any thing seen, drop down further to verify and get exact positioning. Even with terrible fuel economy during this phase, I thought they must be better than the present a/c which can only fly for a few hours in the area at best.

I really dunn’o how it works,.. but I guess,.. besides the visual ( bare ) eyes and binoculars,.. they also have head phones and that also is looking for the ping sound,….with some electronic device connected ( something dropped into the ocean ) ,…( below picture-1 ) Also few air craft has scanners/zoom lenc attached to them with zoom visions and I guess,.. these guys are searching on the monitor,..( the scanned video of the ocean ) rather than with bare vision. ( below picture-2 )
It also seems that, in the suspected areas, they drop the Smokey missiles,…. and later the ship in that area catches up with that smoke and conducts minute observation of any debris seen in that area,....( below picture-3)


.





Indonesian Air Force shows Indonesian Air Force
personnel aboard an Indonesian Air Force military surveillance aircraft on March 11 over the
Straits of Malacca

A crew member prepares to throw a GPS tracking buoy into the Southern Indian Ocean to mark the position of a
solid object in the water, aboard a Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3K2 Orion aircraft searching for missing
Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 March 22, 2014. — Reuters pic

[anterian]

Funny. I thought we where talking about a plane crash. Now you are talking about free falling bodies. How did they exit the plane?

Funny. I thought we where talking about a plane crash. Now you are talking about free falling bodies. How did they exit the plane?

A debris field is the result of disintegration, either in the air, in which case numerous "bodies" not just human bodies exit/depart from the plane involuntarily. If a human body is still attached to a part of the plane structure, even if just a seat, it will reach a lower terminal velocity.
Perhaps I should have used the word "objects" rather than the conventional scientific Newtonian term "body".

[POR911]

I have wondered if there is any economies in using 'large' passenger a/c for the preliminary search of the Southern Indian Oceans. Say a 777-200LR or similar could economically fly into the area at high altitude. Drop down to 5000 or so and conduct visual searches with many eyes. If any thing seen, drop down further to verify and get exact positioning. Even with terrible fuel economy during this phase, I thought they must be better than the present a/c which can only fly for a few hours in the area at best.

[Exadios]

Please post the studies... a polite way of saying "I don't believe you"
Well someone did just that in this thread many days ago, a search with Google will also give you much data and information. However you can even generate your own data, a typical human body in free fall reaches a terminal velocity of 120 mph, the limiting factor being drag. Now if you are attached to something like a seat and which has a lower density than your body, drag will increase in relationship to your combined mass and terminal velocity will become lower.

Funny. I thought we where talking about a plane crash. Now you are talking about free falling bodies. How did they exit the plane?

[voyager10]

Exadios:

^ I read somewhere, that the very area was to hit by the cyclone Giligan,..!!
too bad, that the planes have to come back home all the way far back, daily.
Hope, the U S military base at Diego Garcia, had rather provided a shelter for them,... which is right there situated,...

Unmanned submarine will be used for searching...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG8uA8LxJuo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll17Y4uwI9E

[anterian]

Again, rather than focusing on flight safety, you are focusing on the convenience of the recovery operation.

Please post the studies to which you are referring to.

Please post the studies... a polite way of saying "I don't believe you"
Well someone did just that in this thread many days ago, a search with Google will also give you much data and information. However you can even generate your own data, a typical human body in free fall reaches a terminal velocity of 120 mph, the limiting factor being drag. Now if you are attached to something like a seat and which has a lower density than your body, drag will increase in relationship to your combined mass and terminal velocity will become lower.

[Exadios]

Airbus A319-115(LR) VH-VHD returning.

Canadair CL604 Challenger VH-OCV returning. And Bombardier Global 6000 VH-TGG returning.

Looks like they're all returning early today. Weather is reported to be taking a turn for the worse this evening.

[voyager10]

MH 370 Victims' Photos:


press-1

press-2


..

[Exadios]

Airbus A319-115(LR) VH-VHD returning.

[voyager10]

Anterian:

^^ Well,...I will cut this diversion short, with few more added lines,..

Yaah,.. unfortunately, that's the sad event and sorry fact of the life. In US, we also had a big news on the same event, ( a year+ ago ) that a house was burning to a deadly fire
and only 30 feet away standing a well-equipped fire brigade with its crew were just enjoying watching it,...were not doing anything about it,..
and their reasoning was, because the guy had intentionally removed the fire insurance on his property, and hence it was out of their look out and duty,...
.....And indirectly, the "humanity" itself the people saw it burning !

And, here are the state of the art tech. guys, who repaired the plane in just 5 sec with duct tapes,..



Click for videos !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3srEUzISC0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRBtnDBlrv4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXtnKH_k4W8