'' a false trail of pings ..........Our best theory at this point is that [the pings were] likely some sound produced by the ship … or within the electronics of the Towed Pinger Locator,'' Mr Dean said."
Seems odd, is it common or easy to hear false pings?
Seems odd, is it common or easy to hear false pings?
I don't have any inside information ... but we have to consider that the "pings" observed were probably right at the threshold of detection, deeply buried in background noise. To quantify that, the threshold of detection for such signals is often 40 to 50 dB below (i.e. 10,000 to 100,000 times weaker than) the background noise. That's like trying to identify a clock ticking (~30-40 dB) while a freight train passes by 100 feet away (~70-90 dB). If it were easy, anybody could do it.
[This message has been edited by Marvin McInnis (edited 05-30-2014).]
More noise--this time from underwater "listening posts" off of Australia. The sounds were recorded the same day the plane is believed to have gone down. Not being given much credence since the location is not consistent with the satellite "handshakes" that the search has thus far, gambled all it's chips upon.
Wonder when the psychics are going to chime in on where it is. Will a photo show up on the Enquirer of it setting on the moon, or beamed up by aliens...? If id did crash, it will only be found by accident years from now. I still dont think it did.
Think this would go differently if it were an American Airliner full of Americans?
Of course it would be different...it would be ship loads of Americans confused and bewildered as to why they can't find the plane, instead of ship loads of Malaysians confused and bewildered.
Oh, I saw (more recently) an astrophysicist saying that a typical, stellar (single star) sized black hole can only capture and "suck down" an object or any material that is within a five-mile range. Surprising, I would have thought much different. So there you have it. MH370 somehow came within five miles of one.
[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 06-06-2014).]
Wonder when the psychics are going to chime in on where it is. Will a photo show up on the Enquirer of it setting on the moon, or beamed up by aliens...? If id did crash, it will only be found by accident years from now. I still dont think it did.
Sources close to the investigation confirmed to The Telegraph on Sunday that a deleted flight path had been recovered from Capt Zaharie's simulator which had been used to practice landing an aircraft on a small runway on an unnamed island in the far southern Indian Ocean.
Could be a red herring (I know when I used simulators I'd plot flights all over the place), but given how little they've found right now, anything suspicious is worth investigating.
Kinda a long read. The first part boring. I was thinking ... "get to the meat of the matter". The read gets better. Let me see if I can give you some cliffw notes.
The article's author became a CNN "expert", for their "round the clock" of something to talk about. A quote of his ...
quote
My yearlong detour to Planet MH370 began two days later, ...
Further into the read, the CNN expert began to realize that the mystery he was trying to help solve was just a "news rating cash cow", with no real analytical reasoning going on.
quote
The only Debbie Downer was me. I pointed out that the pings were at the wrong frequency and too far apart to have been generated by stationary black boxes.
He goes on to say ...
quote
Now everyone was in agreement about where to look.
While jubilation rang through the email threads, I nursed a guilty secret: I wasn’t really in agreement. For one, I was bothered by the lack of ...
He then explains ...
quote
For a long time, I resisted even considering the possibility that someone might have tampered with the data. That would require an almost inconceivably sophisticated hijack operation, one so complicated and technically demanding that it would almost certainly need state-level backing. This was true conspiracy-theory material.
And yet, once I started looking for evidence, I found it. One of the commenters on my blog had learned that the compartment on 777s called the electronics-and-equipment bay, or E/E bay, can be accessed via a hatch in the front of the first-class cabin. If perpetrators got in there, a long shot, they would have access to equipment that could be used to change the BFO value of its satellite transmissions. They could even take over the flight controls.
Ok. What could be the proof that they had got "in there" and changed the data. None that they had, but ... some that they might have. He goes on to explain.
quote
I realized that I already had a clue that hijackers had been in the E/E bay. Remember the satcom system disconnected and then rebooted three minutes after the plane left military radar behind. I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out how a person could physically turn the satcom off and on. The only way, apart from turning off half the entire electrical system, would be to go into the E/E bay and pull three particular circuit breakers. It is a maneuver that only a sophisticated operator would know how to execute, and the only reason I could think for wanting to do this was so that Inmarsat would find the records and misinterpret them. They turned on the satcom in order to provide a false trail of bread crumbs leading away from the plane’s true route.
Those are the cliffw notes. Tell me what you think. Can Boonie run a 26.2 mile marathon faster than his horse, ?
I think his wife was pretty close-there may be a distinct 'possibility' it happened as the writer alluded to, but a very low (5%) probability that it did. Forgetting all the technical aviation stuff for a minute, one has to consider the basics for any covert operation.--as the writer talked about. 1. risk 2. motive(s) 3. chance of success. 4. reward(s)
This would be a very high risk endeavor. Risk of discovery for one--even in the planning stage. For an outfit like ISIS, risk is not an issue, but for a major world player like Russia (and more concisely) Putin, risk of discovery would carry a penalty that not even he could deflect or absorb and still be in power. Putin is ego driven, and ego has to be propped up by public knowledge and that public's acknowledgment, not thru his own private and personal satisfaction of having pulled the deed off. Putin basks in the limelight--he may publicly denied involvement in the Crimean secession, but even that public denial was part of his narcisstic and egotistic nature. If not discovered in the planning stage, the risk of discovery during implementation alone was great. Cell phone service was available during the first parts of this flight. I've flown a lot on commercial international flights including over oceans--it always made me feel uneasy, tho almost all the lfight time is incredibly boring and completely uneventful for a passenger. If someone were to open an electronics bay and start fiddling around in it, that would get my attention immediately, and if I understand the article corrctly, the panel with the circuit breakers is in the 1st class passenger cabin. If I saw that happening, I would be on a cell phone immediately telling or texting my next of kin "We may have a problem--they're doing something in one of the electrical panels".
Considering the closeness to and Russia's need for cooperation from and with China, I can't see Putin risking losing one of the few economical and ideological allies he has in the world--that particular flight had a lot of Chinese citizens aboard on every run it made--not just this one.
Motive--what really could be a motive? This "operation" would have taken some time to plan out, get all the different aspects lined up, and the right people in the right places, and the events in Ukraine were moving very very fast at the time. I don't think there would have been enough time to do all that had to be doe for the simple motive of diverting attention away from Putin and Ukraine. There were 100 ways he could have done that without involving the risks this narrative involved. He would more likely have covertly shot down one of his own airliners away from Ukraine region and blamed it on Kiev or even Al Queda before trying this far fetched scenario and gotten immediate results. As was stated, Putin has no shortage of his own airplanes--and could have built one faster than it would have taken to implement this plan.
Chance of success. Low. Very low. I don't know of a single aircraft hijacking that wasn't discovered very very quickly after the first few moments except maybe the 911 airplanes and even those, FAA knew they were diverted within minutes--they just didn't now why or where the planes were going. If Putin truly did do this, I would think he would have hedged his bet and picked one on a flight path closer to the writer's view of a final destination. The longer time period it takes to do something like this and the more involved in details it is, the higher the chance of failure.
Reward(s). I don't see any possible reward for Russia/Putin in this, and it's not their style anyway. They don't fly planes into buildings--they take over cities, countries, incite revolutions, fly their bombers right next to other nations territorial boundaries, put missles on islands next to our shorelines, operate submarines in other nation's waters daring those nations to react. Russia (Putin especially) do thing BIG, saying to the world--"Here we are--we're still here and you can't stop us" . For this scenario, his own people would stop supporting him--it has no domestic or international end game that can be viewed as a realistic reward.
Possible--yeah--all things are possible--but the probability even for Putin's Russia is so low as to be virtually nil. There IS a reward in a different scenario that Russia would love to have, but I have to think about that one for a moment.
I guess I titled this thread correctly then. I think Natl Geographic is going to air a program on MH 370 March 8. I assume it will be re-hashed info that is already out here tho.
(CNN)[Breaking news update, posted at 6:00 p.m. ET]
Boeing's initial assessment of photographs suggests that apparent airplane debris is consistent in appearance with a Boeing 777's flaperon, which is a piece of the plane's wing, a source close to the investigation tells CNN. The source said there is a unique element to the Boeing 777's flaperon that observers believe they are seeing in photos as well, though the source would not disclose what that detail is. The source stressed this is preliminary. The missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was a Boeing 777. The debris was found Wednesday off the coast of Reunion island, a French department in the western Indian Ocean.
[Previous story, posted at 4:25p.m. ET]
More at the link
[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 07-29-2015).]
Interesting. Those pics don't match what I would expect to see for "found on the coast", though. Did it wash up on a shore, or land in a field from the sky?
Wierd, Ill be interested if they can confirm its a 777 part. Almost all aircraft parts have identifying tags. News pointed out there is ONLY one 777 missing in the world. I really cant see it drifting for long and washing up on a beach...assuming its all metal, it would sink after not too long. It really dont appear damaged as it would be falling off a plane at 300 mph. It would be all crushed and wadded up, not look like it just fell off a parked plane. Maybe locals snagged it in fishing equipment and drug it up, and the rest is on the bottom where they got it. With all the grass around it, its not on the beach, but substantially inland where water would not have washed it up.
[This message has been edited by rogergarrison (edited 07-30-2015).]
Interesting. Those pics don't match what I would expect to see for "found on the coast", though. Did it wash up on a shore, or land in a field from the sky?
I am not trying to support any particular theory, but is it possible that the debris was"planted" there? I am not asking, "Is it likely?"; only given it's condition, is it possible? Why or why not?
Are all similar parts from other crashed 777s, including the one in Ukraine accounted for? Is this part essential for takeoff? Can an empty 777 fly without it? I am not asking, "Can it fly safely, legally, etc.?", but is it possible?
Am I seeing barnacles or the like on the part? Are they the same in all parts of the oceans?
Looks like a match to me. If they de-skin the part there should be internal stiffeners with boeing part numbers on them that will definativly tie that part to a 777. Most parts are assembled with a fay surface seal per Boeing "BAC's" to create a sealed corrosion resinstant bond. That would allow the part with trapped air inside to float for a very long period of time as long as it didn't have any punctures.
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ARCHIES JUNK IS FASTER THAN SHAUNNA'S JUNK
12.3 is faster than a 13.2
[This message has been edited by FIEROPHREK (edited 07-30-2015).]
I am not trying to support any particular theory, but is it possible that the debris was"planted" there? I am not asking, "Is it likely?"; only given it's condition, is it possible? Why or why not?
Are all similar parts from other crashed 777s, including the one in Ukraine accounted for? Is this part essential for takeoff? Can an empty 777 fly without it? I am not asking, "Can it fly safely, legally, etc.?", but is it possible?
Am I seeing barnacles or the like on the part? Are they the same in all parts of the oceans?
A flaperon is a flight control that controls the aircraft along the roll axis. It's a mix between a "flap" and an "aileron"
Flaperon
aircraft control surfaces
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ARCHIES JUNK IS FASTER THAN SHAUNNA'S JUNK
12.3 is faster than a 13.2
[This message has been edited by FIEROPHREK (edited 07-30-2015).]
I heard last nite it has Boeing part number on it. What they said is people cleaning up the beach found it on the beach and drug it to where the photos were taken.
The flap is clearly riveted together. I suppose it would be possible to fly without it, really only used to land at a slower speed. Missing, it might tend to turn one direction or the other, correctable by trim settings. Would make it dangerous to try and land at the correct speed as that wing would have less lift as it slowed down. You can land with no flaps if you increase your speed, which it turn requires more runway. Myself, when I go into larger airports, I tend NOT to use flaps at all and just 'fly' it down to landings. Control towers appreciate smaller planes using higher speed landings if possible so they dont have to maintain as much landing separation between planes. Dulles used to thank me when I flew into there often. Nothing clogs things up like six 747s in line to land following a Cessna 172 making a textbook full flaps landing.
Looks like a match to me. If they de-skin the part there should be internal stiffeners with boeing part numbers on them that will definativly tie that part to a 777. Most parts are assembled with a fay surface seal per Boeing "BAC's" to create a sealed corrosion resinstant bond. That would allow the part with trapped air inside to float for a very long period of time as long as it didn't have any punctures.
The whole part should have a serialized tag on it. It is required and it identifies it to the aircrafts serial number. That way if it is removed for maintenance the same part goes back on. It's what is required by the FAA when it is built. We do it here at Gulfstream.
Nearly every part on a plane has an individualized part number on it. FAA can tell you what airplane in a junkyard or shelf somewhere, a panel switch came from and when, thats installed in any specific airplane. Only generic parts like light bulbs, screws and bolts are not all numbered.
French authorities have finally confirmed that they are now certain that this flaperon was part of the missing airliner.
quote
Investigators were finally able to match a serial number on the flaperon, which washed shore on the French island on July 29, to parts used in the manufacture of the doomed Malaysia Airlines plane.
The match was made following confirmation with a technician from Airbus Defense and Space (ADS-SAU) in Spain, which had made the part for Boeing,
"It is now possible to state with certainty that the flaperon found on July 29, 2015 corresponds to the flight MH370," French investigators said in a statement.
There had been some concern that this flaperon might have been a spare or reject part from the ADS-SAU factory that somehow made its way to the rocky coast on Reunion Island without ever having been installed on the missing MH370 airliner.
Again records and serial numbers make any mistake like that unlikely. They would know exactly when the part was installed, where it was installed and the mechanic who oversaw the install. I have to get it signed off if I just change brake pads or tires.
Yes, but there were some concerns about the way that the ADS-SAU facility (plant that produces the flaperons and other parts) was doing its record keeping and "paper" work.
The French investigators had to reassure themselves about that by having some "face time" with an ADS-SAU facility technician.
