We have analysed the raw data from the transponder of #4U9525 and found some more dat

[moritz]

Do you have a link to any resources that gives info on how Autopilot setting can be derived from transponder data? *there is some discussion on another forum whether this is actually possible.? Thanks for the post btw

Hi,
here is a pdf containing the binary format of the ADS-B messages, page 84 contains the target altitude response format.

https://www.ll.mit.edu/mission/aviat...4_WW-15318.pdf

[giacomo892]

All FR24 receivers send RAW data to servers? This sounds very strange. There's a lot of data.

[asctty]

These changes to FL are not automatic and the fact that the captain is heard banging on the door followed by the PAX screaming would sugest this was not a malfunction!

[Michael P]

It was reported on CNN an hour ago that, through a conversation the reporter had with your website, it was determined the autopilot was manually reprogrammed to reduce altitude to 100 feet "within two seconds" of reaching cruising altitude. I am not a pilot, but this does not seem corroborated by the flight history as I read it on your site - perhaps someone meant within two MINUTES?

[uski]

Would it be possible for FR24 to publish the dump of the raw data relative to the flight, for the entire flight ?

[henningz]

It was reported on CNN an hour ago that, through a conversation the reporter had with your website, it was determined the autopilot was manually reprogrammed to reduce altitude to 100 feet "within two seconds" of reaching cruising altitude. I am not a pilot, but this does not seem corroborated by the flight history as I read it on your site - perhaps someone meant within two MINUTES?

He needed two seconds (actually three) to turn the button on the autopilot from 38000 ft to zero...

[GoaTrance]

giacomo, most receiver stations have options as to the data they report to Flightradar24. Mine only reports decoded and crc verified data. I could send 'raw' data if I chose to do so. Some stations will do so and as a result Flightradar24 does have in many cases access to raw transmitted data from an aircraft.

[kucengemok]

Oh i think we can, the co pilot was a mass murderer.

wrong..we just can assume he did..but do u know the truth? i am not eager to declare that the co-pilot did this action as investigation is still running....

as usual,people or the company will try to blame the people involved in the accident first..

[GoaTrance]

I don't like to say this, but in circumstances such as these, my data would be pretty much worthless. Is very basic reporting. Accurate and live, but not the kind of data which would help in such an event. I think we should be happy that some receiver stations do report unfiltered raw flight data.

[Sam26K]

Congratulations to FlightRadar24 for capturing this transponder data! It's remarkable and could be considered legal forensic evidence. Is this kind of data available to the public through this website's databases?

With all the talk about adding cockpit cameras and expensive real time streaming to flights lately, this sounds like a relatively inexpensive way to capture more data from flights without necessarily requiring more hardware on the aircraft that have transponders that are already compatible. All the additional equipment could be limited to ground based radios, controllers and servers to gather the data which takes the economic burden off airborne equipment.

This amazes me that you can get that much data out of a transponder and have never heard that something like autopilot settings was ever a possibility before.

Obviously maybe we would know more about what happened to MH370 if anyone had thought to interrogate the transponder for autopilot settings while it was still in range. I think in that case the transponder was turned off though. A transponder can easily be turned off but so can all the other avionics on a plane if one knows where all the breakers are. It might be a good idea to make it at least more difficult to turn off the transponder than it is now. The industry has known since 911 that the transponders were too easy to switch off and still have refused to change that because it would require a mod to the radio to defeat the off position and possibly adding a new breaker somewhere.

[Sam26K]

It was reported on CNN an hour ago that, through a conversation the reporter had with your website, it was determined the autopilot was manually reprogrammed to reduce altitude to 100 feet "within two seconds" of reaching cruising altitude. I am not a pilot, but this does not seem corroborated by the flight history as I read it on your site - perhaps someone meant within two MINUTES?

The actual data in the first post shows that the change happened in just over 3 seconds with two different decreasing data points of the autopilot altitude control. It shows that the control was rapidly rotated to minimum and 3 seconds sounds reasonable.
The descent rate setting is not the same as the altitude control setting, if that's what you're wondering. The public data on this site shows a descent rate of around 3500 f/min. That shouldn't be confused with the target autopilot altitude settings discussed here.

One other bit of confusion, it was around 5 minutes after reaching cruise altitude that the change in altitude was initiated. It took about 3 seconds to change the autopilot control. So that may have been a misunderstanding in that interview. The data in this OPs original post covers less than 1 minute and corresponds with a thin slice of the flight history that does correspond with the limited publicly available data.

One thing this reminds me of is other similar disasters where one of the pilots leaves the cockpit during a very short flight. Why do these guys need to walk around when the flight is only a few hours? Do bus drivers and train engineers do that? Commercial airline pilots should be required not to leave their seats on these short hops unless it's some kind of emergency.

[Mike]

We normally never upload this data to FR24 as it would consume too much data traffic for hosts (and for us). But after MH370 we learned that the raw data could have a very big value afterwards, and since live uploading of the raw data is not an option, we store it in the FR24 receiver for as long as possible. Depending on coverage we can store last received data for about 4-10 hours. If something happens we can go back and download the data from a receiver, and this is what we did with the receivers near 4U9525 when we heard about the accident.

As the data cannot be easily identified it took us almost 2 days to make the analysis and find the autopilot data.

[giacomo892]

Thanks for the explanation.

[Kelvin]

A question re data:
I downloaded the CSV file with all the data a couple of days ago and I was wondering how you differentiate the obvious discrepancies in the data?
For example, at 08:58 ground speed is shown as 152 kts by ID 8846 but as 11kts by ID 1948.
Later in the flight, altitude is shown by different receivers as 1825ft by one and 9500ft by another. How do you know which is erroneous data and which is accurate?

[Sam26K]

Mike, my opinion is that you have something huge here and you should protect it. So far none of the so called "Experts" from CNN's panels know anything about this tech.