Malaysia Airlines 777 missing en route to beijing

[Sea Skimmer]

I'm not too sure a sail would float spread out like that, but it could be all kinds of other stuff. Still if a fuel tank didn't flood at once I see no reason why it need flood quickly either, two weeks isn't that long for say, wave action to damage it. Major pieces of airliner wing have floated in past crashes, such as TWA Flight 800. Usually they float upright though, rather then flat, but then usually planes don't crash with the fuel tanks completely empty either. All preforations in the tank have some kind of valve, so it could be a empty, sealed tank if we assume the plane flew until fuel exhaustion.

In the last couple hours though one of the Chinese planes has apparently (leaks only so far) reported finding two 'large' objects and a number of smaller ones in a several kilometer wide debris field. No information to indicate if these could be linked to the original objects found by satellite, which were said to be 14km apart at the time, or the later objects noticed by the French and Chinese in the past two days. The damn gyre effect of course makes it entirely possible to the point of likely of finding groups of dissimilar and wholly unrelated objects.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/24/world/asi ... ?hpt=hp_t1

Could be a day or so to get the one lone search ship to the debris field though.

[Simon_Jester]

A sail was a purely random example, you're right that it probably wouldn't actually float. I was floundering a bit.

[AniThyng]

A sail was a purely random example, you're right that it probably wouldn't actually float. I was floundering a bit.

I see what you did there.

Anyhow, now the Australians report they found some objects, and it's possible the RAN ship in the area can retrieve them in a few hours.

[AniThyng]

Ok. Press conference by Malaysian pm in ten minutes. They must have already confirmed it or the pm truly is unforgivably foolish to call a unscheduled press conference to say nothing new.

[Borgholio]

Or they could be calling off the search. I wouldn't put it past them.

Edit - Families of passengers told to assume that none of the passengers on board survived.

...

That's a lot fucking worse.

[AniThyng]

Or they could be calling off the search. I wouldn't put it past them.

Then he would announce it tomorrow at the regular press conference, if that were the case. My 2c.

[AniThyng]

Well that was...unfulfilling. Based of vague allusions to Inmarsat data and the UK AAIB...

[Thanas]

According to Spiegel, the theories regarding terrorists are complete nonsense. Summarizing the article:
- both Taliban and Al-quida apparently have declared through intermediaries that they definitely had nothing to do with this.
- The chinese secret service found no ties to extremists among its citizens
- the co-pilot and pilot did not ask to work together, nor are there any ties or evidence tieing them to extremists
- the pilot's ties to opposition politics were overblown by the media without any shred of evidence
- the iranians were going to Germany to work here. The mother of one of them was waiting in Frankfurt for them.

Interview with a Pilot

[Borgholio]

According to Spiegel, both Taliban and Al-quida apparently have declared through intermediaries that they definitely had nothing to do with this.

If they were responsible, wouldn't they have taken responsibility immediately? Staying silent when they've done something bad isn't their usual MO.

[Broomstick]

No, terrorists do not always immediately send out a press release.

Currently, I'm leaning towards a depressurization accident but given the dearth of information there are still other possibilities.

[HMS Sophia]

An unfortunate announcement:

Malaysia's prime minister has announced that missing flight MH370 crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.

Najib Razak said this was the conclusion of fresh analysis of satellite data tracking the flight.

Malaysia Airlines had told the families of the 239 people on board, he said.

The BBC has seen a text message sent to families by the airline saying it had to be assumed "beyond reasonable doubt" that the plane was lost and there were no survivors.

There were 227 passengers on flight MH370, many of them Chinese.

Relatives of those on board who watched the announcement at a Beijing hotel wept with grief, and some were taken away on stretchers by medical teams.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26716572

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

An unfortunate announcement:

Malaysia's prime minister has announced that missing flight MH370 crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.

Najib Razak said this was the conclusion of fresh analysis of satellite data tracking the flight.

Malaysia Airlines had told the families of the 239 people on board, he said.

The BBC has seen a text message sent to families by the airline saying it had to be assumed "beyond reasonable doubt" that the plane was lost and there were no survivors.

There were 227 passengers on flight MH370, many of them Chinese.

Relatives of those on board who watched the announcement at a Beijing hotel wept with grief, and some were taken away on stretchers by medical teams.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26716572

As if anyone believed another fate was possible.

[AniThyng]

Anyone rational, perhaps. But until they find a tailfin with a MAS emblem on it people will continue doubting this analysis based off some sort of untested methods presumably about to patented by inmarsat.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Anyone rational, perhaps. But until they find a tailfin with a MAS emblem on it people will continue doubting this analysis based off some sort of untested methods presumably about to patented by inmarsat.

Turns out that, because of the conditioning of fear and compliance created by the CCP, Chinese people were incredibly distrustful of all things government. Who knew?

[Thanas]

According to Spiegel, both Taliban and Al-quida apparently have declared through intermediaries that they definitely had nothing to do with this.

If they were responsible, wouldn't they have taken responsibility immediately? Staying silent when they've done something bad isn't their usual MO.

No, because having a standard press officer is a good way asking for that guy to be droned/tortured.

[Sea Skimmer]

Anyone rational, perhaps. But until they find a tailfin with a MAS emblem on it people will continue doubting this analysis based off some sort of untested methods presumably about to patented by inmarsat.

The method in question is the doppler shift analysis I suggested might be useful some time ago. It is nothing new or untested as far as satellite communications go, constellations of military satellites exist to do nothing else but geolocate targets based on that, its just very difficult to do when you only had a single antenna pickup the signal and were not attempting to record the data for that purpose. So they can't have much go on, and likely cannot nail down the location by much, just that the plane was not on the northern route that was also possible based on the range and antenna angle.

[Sea Skimmer]

According to Spiegel, both Taliban and Al-quida apparently have declared through intermediaries that they definitely had nothing to do with this.

If they were responsible, wouldn't they have taken responsibility immediately? Staying silent when they've done something bad isn't their usual MO.

Al Qeada has so many loosely linked subgroups, two of which are actually at war with each other in Syria, that concluding anything about the organization is almost pointless. We WISH it were one big group, life would be easier if it was.

In any case many hijackings in the past have involved very small groups of terrorist which came out of nowhere, and it is hardly impossible that such a group might have used all its members to take a plane, whom are all now dead. While no specific evidence exists of a hijacking, the evidence we do have is if anything stacked against mechanical fault. Because we know the plane still worked as a flying machine long after the initial event. Able not just to fly straight and level but to change course, turn and climb multiple times.

[Sky Captain]

I just remembered when Russian submarine Kursk sank the torpedo explosions and later impact on a seabed was detected by Cold War era undersea microphone network designed to track Russian submarines. I don't know if similar system is in Indian ocean, but if there were could it have detected moment when plane hit the ocean?

[Borgholio]

What I wonder is why nobody has sent an attack sub or two to the area. Surely their hydrophones are sensitive enough to listen for the black box pingers.

[Broomstick]

Nations usually don't advertise the locations of their attack subs. There may well be a bunch of them in the area, but if they find something it will probably be relayed to a corresponding national ship to investigate further.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

What I wonder is why nobody has sent an attack sub or two to the area. Surely their hydrophones are sensitive enough to listen for the black box pingers.

The sea is too deep.

[Borgholio]

What I wonder is why nobody has sent an attack sub or two to the area. Surely their hydrophones are sensitive enough to listen for the black box pingers.

The sea is too deep.

The subs don't have to dive that deep, just run silent and listen.

[General Zod]

What I wonder is why nobody has sent an attack sub or two to the area. Surely their hydrophones are sensitive enough to listen for the black box pingers.

The sea is too deep.

The subs don't have to dive that deep, just run silent and listen.

It's possible they're busy doing other stuff and can't be diverted right now.

[Broomstick]

It's also possible there are subs there but none of the owning nations wish to disclose the exact locations of those subs.

[mr friendly guy]

I have heard that people are deploying what sounds like a device that listens to the pings from boats. Basically let it submerge by itself and then presumably gets pulled up by the boat. So there most probably isn't a need to divert subs for this.

That being said given how long its taken since the plane went missing, if a nation was inclined to send a sub, surely we wouldn't necessarily think it was diverted from close by giving the number of days it could have been travelling to reach the area.