Singapore Expats

bgd wrote:Malaysian military radar didn't detect the aircraft changing course and it would have been visible. Not sure how much reliance you can place on military radar, which does surprise me somewhat. Perhaps borders are not as protected as we imagine.

Primrose Hill wrote:How much longer?

Steve1960 wrote:The plane shadowed a Singapore Airlines flight so that it would not be picked up by radar.

Steve1960 wrote:Some interesting comments I read and listened to.

The plane shadowed a Singapore Airlines flight so that it would not be picked up by radar.

A nuclear submarine could pick up the noise created by the plane hitting the water from a long way off but if it was your submarine would you want to admit it's location by coming forward?

sundaymorningstaple wrote:What's really starting to get interesting is the fact that, as I supposed, they have now found software on his 777 simulator for 5 1000' landing strips locations. Get this.....

Mali, 3 in Indian/Sri Lanka and one in the centre of the Indian Ocean, Diego Garcia. Guess who's sitting there. All have 1000 m runways. It takes 5,098' to land a fully loaded 777-200 ER. Not sure short if it's running empty or very low on fuel. Is there a Hanger big enough to hide a 777 on Diego Garcia?

We old pilots were drilled to know what is the closest airport of safe harbor while in cruise. Airports behind us, airports abeam us, and airports ahead of us. They’re always in our head. Always. If something happens, you don’t want to be thinking about what are you going to do–you already know what you are going to do. When I saw that left turn with a direct heading, I instinctively knew he was heading for an airport. He was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi, a 13,000-foot airstrip with an approach over water and no obstacles. The captain did not turn back to Kuala Lampur because he knew he had 8,000-foot ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier toward Langkawi, which also was closer.

For me, the loss of transponders and communications makes perfect sense in a fire. And there most likely was an electrical fire. In the case of a fire, the first response is to pull the main busses and restore circuits one by one until you have isolated the bad one. If they pulled the busses, the plane would go silent. It probably was a serious event and the flight crew was occupied with controlling the plane and trying to fight the fire. Aviate, navigate, and lastly, communicate is the mantra in such situations.

Regarding the additional flying time: On departing Kuala Lampur, Flight 370 would have had fuel for Beijing and an alternate destination, probably Shanghai, plus 45 minutes–say, 8 hours. Maybe more. He burned 20-25 percent in the first hour with takeoff and the climb to cruise. So when the turn was made toward Langkawi, he would have had six hours or more hours worth of fuel. This correlates nicely with the Inmarsat data pings being received until fuel exhaustion.

The now known continued flight until time to fuel exhaustion only confirms to me that the crew was incapacitated and the flight continued on deep into the south Indian ocean.

Fire in an aircraft demands one thing: Get the machine on the ground as soon as possible. There are two well-remembered experiences in my memory. The AirCanada DC9 which landed, I believe, in Columbus, Ohio in the 1980s. That pilot delayed descent and bypassed several airports. He didn’t instinctively know the closest airports. He got it on the ground eventually, but lost 30-odd souls. The 1998 crash of Swissair DC-10 off Nova Scotia was another example of heroic pilots. They were 15 minutes out of Halifax but the fire overcame them and they had to ditch in the ocean. They simply ran out of time. That fire incidentally started when the aircraft was about an hour out of Kennedy. Guess what? The transponders and communications were shut off as they pulled the busses.

Saint wrote:The US Military has cancelled its multi billion dollar research and development program into the next generation of stealth aircraft as they discover simply turning off the transponder has the same effect.

For me, the loss of transponders and communications makes perfect sense in a fire. And there most likely was an electrical fire. In the case of a fire, the first response is to pull the main busses and restore circuits one by one until you have isolated the bad one. If they pulled the busses, the plane would go silent. It probably was a serious event and the flight crew was occupied with controlling the plane and trying to fight the fire. Aviate, navigate, and lastly, communicate is the mantra in such situations.