PDA

View Full Version : Malaysia Airliner Communications Shut Down Separately



jimnyc
03-13-2014, 06:51 PM
If true, was it pilot suicide? Maybe someone took over the plane? Still too early on this one as well, but worth posting.


Two U.S. officials tell ABC News the U.S. believes that the shutdown of two communication systems happened separately on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. One source said this indicates the plane did not come out of the sky because of a catastrophic failure.

The data reporting system, they believe, was shut down at 1:07 a.m. The transponder -- which transmits location and altitude -- shut down at 1:21 a.m.

This indicates it may well have been a deliberate act, ABC News aviation consultant John Nance said.

U.S. investigators told ABC News that the two modes of communication were "systematically shut down."

That means the U.S. team "is convinced that there was manual intervention," a source said, which means it was likely not an accident or catastrophic malfunction that took the plane out of the sky.

U.S. officials said earlier that they have an "indication" the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner may have crashed in the Indian Ocean and is moving the USS Kidd to the area to begin searching.

It's not clear what the indication was, but senior administration officials told ABC News the missing Malaysian flight continued to "ping" a satellite on an hourly basis after it lost contact with radar. The Boeing 777 jetliners are equipped with what is called the Airplane Health Management system in which they ping a satellite every hour. The number of pings would indicate how long the plane stayed aloft.

It's not clear, however, whether the satellite pings also indicate the plane's location.

The new information has greatly expanded the potential search area into the Indian Ocean.

"We have an indication the plane went down in the Indian Ocean," the senior Pentagon official said.

The official initially said there were indications that the plane flew four or five hours after disappearing from radar and that they believe it went into the water. Officials later said the plane likely did not fly four or five hours, but did not specify how long it may have been airborne.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said, “It's my understanding that based on some new information that's not necessarily conclusive, but new information, an additional search area may be opened in the Indian Ocean, and we are consulting with international partners about the appropriate assets to deploy.”

http://abcnews.go.com/International/malaysia-airliner-pinging-indication-crashed-indian-ocean/story?id=22894802

jafar00
03-14-2014, 12:45 AM
Here's hoping the jet was stolen for other purposes or landed somewhere without crashing.

The lack of debris gives hope at least.

namvet
03-14-2014, 10:25 AM
to me the transponder is the most dangerous piece of equipment on board. me, you everyone can just walk in and turn it off. in past hijacks its the first thing shut off. 3 of the 4 planes on 911 turned it off. now the plane is blind to ATC. I think the technology is there to replace it or move it. as long as it stays in the cockpit we'll see more hijacks and more passengers die.
if this transponder stays on we know where where this flight went the day it disappeared. IMO

Little-Acorn
03-14-2014, 10:45 AM
The transponders is just a radio that sits there and listens for a pulse from an air-traffic-control radar. When it hears one, the transponder transmits a four-digit number back to the radar. Most transponders also transmit information about the plane's altitude and other things. A transponder is required, even for small planes, if they fly around airports of any size. All airliners have them.

Even if the transponder is turned off, the ATC radar can see the plane just fine, as a spot of light on the radar screen. It just doesn't get that extra info. When it gets transponder info, it prints the plane's number next to the spot of light, along with the altitude and other information.

Most radars can't tell how high the plane is with any degree of accuracy, unless there's a transponder on the plane that is measuring its altitude and transmitting the info out to the radar. Again, all airliners have such transponders... but they can be turned off.

If someone turned off the transponder on this plane, then its image on a radar screen does NOT vanish. There's still the spot of light denoting the plane, but the other info printed next to it, vanishes. And then, if the plane descends below the horizon of the radar, THEN it can vanish from the radar screen completely. Apparently this Maylasian airliner did that, soon after its transponder signals ceased.

Little-Acorn
03-14-2014, 10:52 AM
BTW, I've heard that the airliner's engines had little radios of some kind, of their own, designed to transmit signals carrying operating info, back to the engine designers at Rolls-Royce. And I'm now hearing that four separate packets of info were picked up from these engine radios.

The Maylasian airline hadn't subscribed to Rolls-Royce's service for processing this engine info in-flight, but apparently the little radios were still active, broadcasting out a signal occasionally that basically said, "I have some info, does anybody want it?" If it gets no reply, apparently it waits for a while, then repeats the query.

Does anybody know:

1.) Did these engine signals continue AFTER the airliner's transponder signals stopped? If so, for how long?
2.) Did these engine signals contain any location info (latitude and longitude, or whatever)?
3.) If no overt location info, was it possible to use a direction finder on the signals anyway, and get an idea of where they were coming from?
4.) IS there any information about what locations, or directions, these signals came from?

namvet
03-14-2014, 11:23 AM
BTW, I've heard that the airliner's engines had little radios of some kind, of their own, designed to transmit signals carrying operating info, back to the engine designers at Rolls-Royce. And I'm now hearing that four separate packets of info were picked up from these engine radios.

The Maylasian airline hadn't subscribed to Rolls-Royce's service for processing this engine info in-flight, but apparently the little radios were still active, broadcasting out a signal occasionally that basically said, "I have some info, does anybody want it?" If it gets no reply, apparently it waits for a while, then repeats the query.

Does anybody know:

1.) Did these engine signals continue AFTER the airliner's transponder signals stopped? If so, for how long?
2.) Did these engine signals contain any location info (latitude and longitude, or whatever)?
3.) If no overt location info, was it possible to use a direction finder on the signals anyway, and get an idea of where they were coming from?
4.) IS there any information about what locations, or directions, these signals came from?

its called ping. sends a sig to a satellite which relays to engineers on the ground. engine functions, rate of fuel and oil use, all systems etc. but not a locator.

Little-Acorn
03-14-2014, 12:49 PM
its called ping. sends a sig to a satellite which relays to engineers on the ground. engine functions, rate of fuel and oil use, all systems etc. but not a locator.

Well, even if it didn't have location info in its data, perhaps it was possible to do old-style direction-finding on the signal itself, and triangulate each one?

Most important, of course, is simply to know that we heard one of those "pings" a hour after the plane's transponder went off the air, and another "ping" an hour after that, and another etc. (or whatever the timing was).

If those "pings" had come in some hours after the transponder stopped, that would at least tell us that the plane was in condition to send them at those times... which it probably wouldn't have been if it had crashed into the sea a minute after the transponders had quit.

When were the "pings" received? Before, or after the transponder stopped? If after, how long after?

And, BTW, did they carry info indicating the engines were running normally?

For some reason the news reports I've heard so far, did not supply this info. Strange, since it's obviously the most important info we could get up front from these "pings".

namvet
03-14-2014, 01:11 PM
Well, even if it didn't have location info in its data, perhaps it was possible to do old-style direction-finding on the signal itself, and triangulate each one?

Most important, of course, is simply to know that we heard one of those "pings" a hour after the plane's transponder went off the air, and another "ping" an hour after that, and another etc. (or whatever the timing was).

If those "pings" had come in some hours after the transponder stopped, that would at least tell us that the plane was in condition to send them at those times... which it probably wouldn't have been if it had crashed into the sea a minute after the transponders had quit.

When were the "pings" received? Before, or after the transponder stopped? If after, how long after?

And, BTW, did they carry info indicating the engines were running normally?

For some reason the news reports I've heard so far, did not supply this info. Strange, since it's obviously the most important info we could get up front from these "pings".

the 777 has the ping. its sent every hour. no one on board has accesss to it. yes it was pinging before and continued to ping after the transponder was shut off. how long till it stopped i don't know. IMO they could use it as a backup to the transponder. an update or upgrade to its software should not be to difficult. now it sends the same info. but they have to change the ground system to include an alert to course changes etc. and also it should ping serval time an hour. maybe a streaming signal. why they don't look for other ways to fix this problem is beyond me.

Missing Malaysia plane: Satellites picked up 'pings,' source says


link (http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-03-13/news/chi-malaysia-plane-missing-20140313_1_search-area-new-information-andaman-sea)

Little-Acorn
03-14-2014, 05:29 PM
When were the "pings" received? Before, or after the transponder stopped? If after, how long after?

And, BTW, did they carry info indicating the engines were running normally?

For some reason the news reports I've heard so far, did not supply this info. Strange, since it's obviously the most important info we could get up front from these "pings".

Finally.....

---------------------------------------

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/03/14/malaysia-airlines-search-heads-toward-indian-ocean/

(snip)

Another communications system on the plane continued to "ping" a satellite for about four hours after contact was lost with the aircraft -- an indication the plane may have continued to fly on for hours.

Gaffer
03-14-2014, 08:50 PM
Well it's looking like this is now turning into a criminal investigation. Four different transponders turned off at 4 different times. A zigzag course and large altitude changes. It also explains why the phones were ringing and not going direct to voice mail.

My guess is a hijacking and attempt to steal the aircraft. Whether it has landed somewhere or not is anyone's guess. I think it was to go to either iran or pakistan. It would have had to have a refueling point as far as I can tell from the reports.

Very interesting mystery.

namvet
03-14-2014, 09:38 PM
Well it's looking like this is now turning into a criminal investigation. Four different transponders turned off at 4 different times. A zigzag course and large altitude changes. It also explains why the phones were ringing and not going direct to voice mail.

My guess is a hijacking and attempt to steal the aircraft. Whether it has landed somewhere or not is anyone's guess. I think it was to go to either iran or pakistan. It would have had to have a refueling point as far as I can tell from the reports.

Very interesting mystery.

its shaping up that way. the change in altitude is new to me. but i saw it on CNN and Fox TV tonite. it climbed to 45,000 then dropped to 26 then back up to 29 just before disappearing. they attempted the climb to 45 in a sim and the stall alarm went off. she was to big and to heavy and above max altitude. how it stayed in one piece on the nose dive is beyond me. a brit satellite caught it. the steep fast climb was to knock the passengers out. and kill em all before they could get oxygen. smells like a hyjack.
investigation. the co pilot is (or was) a muslim. on a previous flight he allowed passengers into the cockpit and even flirted with them. that's allowed over there.

Gaffer
03-19-2014, 10:21 AM
Been following this on the news. Of course it's hard not to turn on the news and not see it. So it seems the pilots hijacked this plane. No one in that region seems to be very anxious to do much but investigators have pulled and pushed and bullied some of the major characters into giving up information.

It seems the computer was programed to change course just as it was leaving Malaysia air space. It made a zigzag path and flew below radar in some areas. It was spotted by Thai military radar, but that wasn't reported until ten days after the fact because, nobody specifically asked them.

My guess, they took the plane across to iran, or they landed at a remote field big enough to handle that size of a plane and flew on to iran. The two iranians with the stolen passports points to that. But it hasn't been mentioned whether the pilots were sunni or shite. If sunni, look in pakistan. I think there are some long running plans for it's use.

There was a transport plane stolen years ago from a mining camp or supply area somewhere in Africa as I recall. There was worry about what it would be used for. It has never been located and didn't get much coverage at the time.

namvet
03-21-2014, 07:10 PM
just in

http://wonkette.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Gremlin005a-1024x576.png


http://whysoblu.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/nightmare-3.jpg


http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130213224204/h__/halloween/images/2/2d/Twilight_Zone_Gremlin.jpg