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Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 ended in the Southern Indian Ocean

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Nyoro SF

Member
What would be your solution to prevent circumstances like this, where a plane has vanished for two weeks?

There's already a solution out there, it's just that Malaysia Air was too cheap to buy it.

Some sort of system which allowed satellite communications to continue on plane's minimum/base power, even if the main power to the comm was shut down.
 

KHarvey16

Member
What would be your solution to prevent circumstances like this, where a plane has vanished for two weeks?

You really can't safely prevent all circumstances like this.

Scenario one is deliberate action. If a pilot decides to kill him or her self along with everyone on board there isn't anything that can be done aside from crew members or passengers physically resisting. Even if we tracked every single movement of MH370 there's nothing that could have been done to save people. You can make voice recorders and black boxes and potentially cameras impossible to turn off, but that is sacrificing a bit of safety to account for a situation where the benefits are being able to find the crash sooner and being better able to determine what happened prior to that crash. It's possible that's worth it but I wouldn't bet on it to be honest.

Scenario two is an incident or accident leading to multiple failures. Beyond improving safety in general there isn't anything specific to address it since it's just a matter of being unlucky that the systems needed to locate the plane were destroyed. Improving safety by making sure failures like this don't happen is always a priority.

There's already a solution out there, it's just that Malaysia Air was too cheap to buy it.

Some sort of system which allowed satellite communications to continue on plane's minimum/base power, even if the main power to the comm was shut down.

That system could be turned off too.
 
Something will be found, but likely not much and will be randomly found on a beach or by a passing cargo ship is my prediction. At least there will be closure at that point.
This is my guess but if its in the south Indian ocean that could take years. I don't think those waters are trafficked very often.
 

AkuMifune

Banned
Near the end of CNN's special primetime report on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on Wednesday, anchor Don Lemon read a pair of tweets he received from viewers suggesting the plane's disappearance could be the result of a "black hole," Bermuda Triangle or an occurence akin to the television series "Lost."

Lemon then turned to Mary Schiavo, former inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation, and said, "I know it's preposterous, but is it preposterous, do you think, Mary?"

"It is," Schiavo replied. "A small black hole would suck in our entire universe. So we know it's not that. The Bermuda Triangle is often weather, and 'Lost' is a TV show."

"Right," Lemon said.

It's not the first time Lemon has invoked the supernatural to explain why the plane is missing.

Fucking Don Lemon.
 

raindoc

Member
I don't know why this black hole revelation isn't a bigger deal. De Grasse Tyson lied. The Hadron Collider people lied. We're all getting spaghettfied into an event horizon.
KrW4QHe.jpg
.
 

Opiate

Member
A black hole would suck in our entire universe. Apparently employees at the department of transportation are not physicists.
 

CREMSteve

Member
I fly on commercial airliners 5 days a week for business and I can assure you, female pilots do exist. I probably get one once a week, on average, including co-pilots.
 
Latest from the southern search area:

- The Indian Ocean search will be intensified with 2 more P3 Orion planes from Japan + 5 ships and 3 helicopters from China.

- Search will now be done visually with planes flying low and close together as radar has so far picked up nothing.

- Search is a pain since it's in the middle of nowhere. Planes can only search for 1-2 hours before having to return to Australia to be refueled.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-21/search-fails-to-find-possible-mh370-debris/5337908

I do hope this doesn't lead to another dead end.
 

BearPawB

Banned
I had so much hope that after the Australia announcement things would pick up pace.
But somehow it seems more hopeless than ever.
 
Cathay Pacific has very cute female crew.

On topic, I hope this gets sorted out soon, still can't believe no one knows where this plane is.

I like Asian babes A LOT and the the prettiest ones by far are at Korean Air my man! Trust me, I see them everyday and almost all of them are super cute. There is this Chinese airline at Pearson as well, their flight attendants are really good looking as well. My ranking would be

Korean Air > Chinese airline > Cathay Pacific
 

Ovid

Member
Latest from the southern search area:

- The Indian Ocean search will be intensified with 2 more P3 Orion planes from Japan + 5 ships and 3 helicopters from China.

- Search will now be done visually with planes flying low and close together as radar has so far picked up nothing.

- Search is a pain since it's in the middle of nowhere. Planes can only search for 1-2 hours before having to return to Australia to be refueled.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-21/search-fails-to-find-possible-mh370-debris/5337908

I do hope this doesn't lead to another dead end.
Get a carrier and a Stratotanker out there.
 

coldfoot

Banned
I guess it's because anything electrical can cause a fire - there needs to be a way of shutting it all off.
The FDR does not have a switch to turn it off, but it has a fuse, and even if you pull the fuse, it has battery backup. No reason the same can't be applied to ACARS
 

syllogism

Member
The guardian interviewed a cabin crew member (and a pilot, but that part of the interview is less interesting). If the procedures described by her are actually applied in practice, it's hard to see how this could have been a suicide by one of the pilots. There is just no way the cabin crew wouldn't have noticed something being astray, unless everyone, except perhaps the pilot, was incapacitated.

How much communication do you have with the pilots throughout a flight as lengthy as the one from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing?

Lots. The purser - the person in charge of cabin crew - will be liaising with the flight crew throughout boarding. The cockpit then becomes sterile for take-off so there would be no communication for the first 20 minutes of the flight, and it's 40 minutes before we’re allowed to enter the cockpit. Along with 20-minute checks, we’ll be chatting regularly with the pilots. Crew quite often pop up front when they’re on breaks too for a face-to-face chat.

Would the cabin crew be aware that the flight had changed direction or taken an unplanned turn?

Any severe turns or dips would be noted ... and would probably result in a call to the flight deck from the senior cabin crew member.

How long could the autopilot fly an aircraft, for example if the pilots were incapacitated, without cabin crew knowing?

The aircraft could fly to its destination and even land on autopilot but the cabin crew are trained to communicate with the flight crew at least every 20 minutes to ensure that neither of them are ill or incapacitated. Procedures are in place to gain access to the flight deck if necessary, for example in the event of no response.


http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/21/what-happened-to-flight-mh370-missing-plane?CMP=twt_gu
 

Damaniel

Banned
Glad to see CNN scraping the bottom of the barrel as usual. First, a black hole as a possible culprit, and now bringing on psychics?

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/i-tend-to-work-off-what-i-dont-know-hln-asks-psychic-to-investigate-missing-plane/

Apparently, according to this psychic, at least some of the passengers are still alive. Too bad the families can't sue the shit out of her after they find the wreckage - there's no way that the passengers (or the plane) are OK at this point, sadly. And shame on CNN for giving this kind of bullshit the time of day - I'd expect this little journalistic integrity from Fox News, but not from anybody else.
 

KHarvey16

Member
The FDR does not have a switch to turn it off, but it has a fuse, and even if you pull the fuse, it has battery backup. No reason the same can't be applied to ACARS

FDR generally has battery power for the beacon and some kind of independent supply for recording. The latter would at least have a fuse and might even be on a breaker, but even if none of that were true it only lasts 10-15 minutes.
 

raindoc

Member
The guardian interviewed a cabin crew member (and a pilot, but that part of the interview is less interesting). If the procedures described by her are actually applied in practice, it's hard to see how this could have been a suicide by one of the pilots. There is just no way the cabin crew wouldn't have noticed something being astray, unless everyone, except perhaps the pilot, was incapacitated.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/21/what-happened-to-flight-mh370-missing-plane?CMP=twt_gu

No shit. Due to the steep climb to 45,000 feet I'd say that every toddler on board that plane noticed something was wrong.

Glad to see CNN scraping the bottom of the barrel as usual. First, a black hole as a possible culprit, and now bringing on psychics?

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/i-tend-to-work-off-what-i-dont-know-hln-asks-psychic-to-investigate-missing-plane/

Apparently, according to this psychic, at least some of the passengers are still alive. Too bad the families can't sue the shit out of her after they find the wreckage - there's no way that the passengers (or the plane) are OK at this point, sadly. And shame on CNN for giving this kind of bullshit the time of day - I'd expect this little journalistic integrity from Fox News, but not from anybody else.

Wow. Just wow.
 

greepoman

Member
The FDR does not have a switch to turn it off, but it has a fuse, and even if you pull the fuse, it has battery backup. No reason the same can't be applied to ACARS

A pilot I know says you always turn off acars once you're parked on the ground so you don't interfere...you'd need some sort if software deciding to turn it on and off and that's a whole nother can of worms.
 
Glad to see CNN scraping the bottom of the barrel as usual. First, a black hole as a possible culprit, and now bringing on psychics?

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/i-tend-to-work-off-what-i-dont-know-hln-asks-psychic-to-investigate-missing-plane/

Apparently, according to this psychic, at least some of the passengers are still alive. Too bad the families can't sue the shit out of her after they find the wreckage - there's no way that the passengers (or the plane) are OK at this point, sadly. And shame on CNN for giving this kind of bullshit the time of day - I'd expect this little journalistic integrity from Fox News, but not from anybody else.

I watched the black hole clip and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Unfortunately there are people out there with crazy speculation, and it wasn't exactly endorsed or properly discussed - just dismissed.

This is crazy though - how awful.
 
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