Mar 17, 2014, 3:08 pm
Last edit by: JDiver
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Our diversity demands that we respect each other. Due to the inherent constraints of the Internet, humor, sarcasm, language and slang can be easily misinterpreted - especially when crossing cultural boundaries.
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MH370 Discussion and Speculation Thread
Apr 10, 2014, 8:27 am
#1636
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: BNE
Posts: 87
I think someone else mentioned this but I didn't see any good answer to it yet:
It was my understanding that the Inmarsat data yielded an arc (mostly represented by a red line) whose accuracy was thought to be in the order of 100 miles or so. Now, jumping the gun a bit to assume the Ocean Shield really has found the pingers, we find that they're exactly smack dab on the red line. Did I miss a step where additional data scrubbing put the red line down with much better accuracy; or was Ocean Shield really, really lucky (in the north-south direction too BTW); or could there be other data that has directed the search more precisely?
Somebody suggested Australian radar could be at play here - anyone have any information about that?
It was my understanding that the Inmarsat data yielded an arc (mostly represented by a red line) whose accuracy was thought to be in the order of 100 miles or so. Now, jumping the gun a bit to assume the Ocean Shield really has found the pingers, we find that they're exactly smack dab on the red line. Did I miss a step where additional data scrubbing put the red line down with much better accuracy; or was Ocean Shield really, really lucky (in the north-south direction too BTW); or could there be other data that has directed the search more precisely?
Somebody suggested Australian radar could be at play here - anyone have any information about that?
To understand how it works and what it can do I suggest reading the fact sheet here: http://www.airforce.gov.au/docs/JORN_Fact_Sheet.pdf and the Wikipedia entry here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jindale..._Radar_Network
The best info page on the system (which was a non official one) looks to have vanished from the interweb sometime in the last few days. No doubt someone noticed some snippet of infomation on there that should not have been in the public domain.
Apr 10, 2014, 2:02 pm
#1637
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: SYD (perenially), GVA (not in a long time)
Programs: QF PS, EK-Gold, Security Theatre Critic
Posts: 6,778
One (speculative) suggestion I'll offer is that although each arc may have an amount of error if you assume a constant speed then that will help 'respace' them. So if the hourly arcs were notionally 420, 460 and 450 nautical miles apart you could calculate an assumed average speed of ~435knts and replot the lines to fit that assumption.
Also the ping locations appear, from the map, to be up to about 10 km from the thin red line, so they're not "miraculously" on the line itself. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Apr 11, 2014, 7:03 pm
#1638
Join Date: Mar 2011
Programs: AAA
Posts: 39
Nothing found in the last 24 hours.
http://www.jacc.gov.au/media/release...ril/mr019.aspx
Probably the FDR and CVR beacons are too weak to detect. Nothing from the surface debris searches, even with the current information on the likely impact location. I wonder if they will try to drag the TPL closer than 1000 m from the ocean bottom or just launch the AUV tomorrow?
http://www.jacc.gov.au/media/release...ril/mr019.aspx
Probably the FDR and CVR beacons are too weak to detect. Nothing from the surface debris searches, even with the current information on the likely impact location. I wonder if they will try to drag the TPL closer than 1000 m from the ocean bottom or just launch the AUV tomorrow?
Apr 12, 2014, 8:47 am
#1639
Join Date: Sep 2005
Programs: AA,CO, AS
Posts: 58
The co-pilot of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 switched his phone on moments before the plane disappeared from the radar, a Malaysian newspaper has claimed . . .
http://www.nst.com.my/nation/general...#ixzz2yg0vUATg
http://www.nst.com.my/nation/general...#ixzz2yg0vUATg
Last edited by NewbieRunner; Apr 12, 2014 at 11:22 am Reason: Replaced link with the source of 'news'
Apr 12, 2014, 10:52 am
#1640
Join Date: May 2003
Location: CA
Programs: AA Lifetime Gold, HHonors Diamond
Posts: 2,879
The co-pilot of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 switched his phone on moments before the plane disappeared from the radar, a Malaysian newspaper has claimed . . .
http://www.nst.com.my/nation/general...#ixzz2yg0vUATg
http://www.nst.com.my/nation/general...#ixzz2yg0vUATg
http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-co...-call-1.563728
Last edited by NewbieRunner; Apr 12, 2014 at 11:24 am Reason: Replaced link with the source of 'news'
Apr 13, 2014, 3:10 pm
#1641
Join Date: May 2004
Location: SYD
Programs: UA PG 1MM - AccorPlus Platinum
Posts: 321
Missing Malaysia Airlines plane MH370 ‘thrown around like fighter jet’
Missing Malaysia Airlines plane MH370 ‘thrown around like fighter jet’ in bid to avoid radar, source claims...
http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel...-1226883092654
http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel...-1226883092654
Apr 14, 2014, 3:27 am
#1643
Join Date: Mar 2011
Programs: AAA
Posts: 39
Each trip taken by the Bluefin-21 will take 24 hours. If the first search finds nothing, the search area will be expanded.
It takes two hours for the Bluefin-21 to reach the sea floor, Mr Houston said. At walking pace, it will then search for 16 hours, before taking another two hours to return to the surface. It then takes four hours to download the data the vehicle has detected.
The vehicle is equipped with side-scan sonar which transmits an active pulse. This produces a high-resolution three-dimensional map of the sea floor.
Meanwhile, ADV Ocean Shield detected an ‘‘oil slick’’ in the range of its search zone on Sunday, Mr Houston said.
However, it will be days before the origins of the oil can be investigated by experts on shore.
It takes two hours for the Bluefin-21 to reach the sea floor, Mr Houston said. At walking pace, it will then search for 16 hours, before taking another two hours to return to the surface. It then takes four hours to download the data the vehicle has detected.
The vehicle is equipped with side-scan sonar which transmits an active pulse. This produces a high-resolution three-dimensional map of the sea floor.
Meanwhile, ADV Ocean Shield detected an ‘‘oil slick’’ in the range of its search zone on Sunday, Mr Houston said.
However, it will be days before the origins of the oil can be investigated by experts on shore.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/searc...#ixzz2yqegyjT0
The prime search area is down to 40 sq km (5x8 km). The Bluefin will have the data downloaded at the end of every 24 day cycle and there will probably be additional time for the data to be analyzed so we are probably looking at about 2 more days before there will be any hard news about the findings, which I hope will be a bathymetric map like the one at this link:
http://victoriammarinescience.blogsp...and-their.html
This is a link to just the sample map (not of the MH370 site):
http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/press_rele...metry_map3.jpg
If the Bluefin is searching the right spot I suspect we may be able to see a simiilar map with circles marking suspected airplane parts (that the rover will be sent to bring back) presented at a future JACC news conference in a week or so, maybe less.
They have done amazing work so far.
Angus Houston's comment about the oil slick is also possibly a low key announcement of the first actual physical artifact detected. If the avgas is all dispersed quickly, as was reported earlier, could this be hydraulic fluid? I think the only room for speculation now is what will be the first (and next) fragment to be recovered.
Last edited by cblaisd; Apr 14, 2014 at 10:53 am Reason: Please make it clear using standard software functions what is a quote and what is not
Apr 14, 2014, 6:50 am
#1644
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Bowling Green KY
Programs: DL Million Miler, Hyatt Globalist, Hilton Diamond, Marriott Gold,
Posts: 37
And now we wait...
and hope the boxes are found.
"One thing" keeps gnawing at me.....why has there been no surface wreckage found? Until the pings were detected (we think), this was truly a needle in a haystack exercise. But now that the possible surface debris field is much much smaller, I am surprised nothing has been found on the surface yet.
Like everything else about this, I do not know what to make of this, and dozens of scenarios are plausible based on how little we actually know at this point.
Seems odd though
"One thing" keeps gnawing at me.....why has there been no surface wreckage found? Until the pings were detected (we think), this was truly a needle in a haystack exercise. But now that the possible surface debris field is much much smaller, I am surprised nothing has been found on the surface yet.
Like everything else about this, I do not know what to make of this, and dozens of scenarios are plausible based on how little we actually know at this point.
Seems odd though
Apr 15, 2014, 1:20 am
#1645
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Vancouver
Programs: Amex Centurion
Posts: 150
and hope the boxes are found.
"One thing" keeps gnawing at me.....why has there been no surface wreckage found? Until the pings were detected (we think), this was truly a needle in a haystack exercise. But now that the possible surface debris field is much much smaller, I am surprised nothing has been found on the surface yet.
Like everything else about this, I do not know what to make of this, and dozens of scenarios are plausible based on how little we actually know at this point.
Seems odd though
"One thing" keeps gnawing at me.....why has there been no surface wreckage found? Until the pings were detected (we think), this was truly a needle in a haystack exercise. But now that the possible surface debris field is much much smaller, I am surprised nothing has been found on the surface yet.
Like everything else about this, I do not know what to make of this, and dozens of scenarios are plausible based on how little we actually know at this point.
Seems odd though
Apr 15, 2014, 1:21 am
#1646
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Brisbane (BNE), Australia, QF/VA Forums Meeting Organiser
Programs: VA Plat, QF Gold (97.4% LTG), QP Life, AA (66% LTG). HH Diamond. Amex Plat, Visa Plat
Posts: 6,519
2 hours descent
16 hours survey
2 hours ascent
4 hours of data download/ analysis
Presumably after the download, they will do any maintenance on it at the same time as the analysts are poring over data. Just how long they take to release the data, let's hope it's quicker than the satellite data
Last throw of the dice?
Apr 15, 2014, 1:35 am
#1647
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Brisbane (BNE), Australia, QF/VA Forums Meeting Organiser
Programs: VA Plat, QF Gold (97.4% LTG), QP Life, AA (66% LTG). HH Diamond. Amex Plat, Visa Plat
Posts: 6,519
I continue to think of the similarities between MH370 and SA295:
Originally Posted by Wikipedia
South African Airways Flight 295 (flown by a Boeing 747 named Helderberg) was a commercial flight that suffered a catastrophic in-flight fire in the cargo area and crashed into the Indian Ocean east of Mauritius on 28 November 1987, killing everyone on board.[2][3] An extensive salvage operation was mounted in order to try to recover the flight data recorders, one of which was recovered from a depth of 4,900 metres (16,100 ft)—the deepest successful salvage operation ever conducted
But they found the Helderberg because they knew where to look a lot sooner and it was a hell of a lot closer to land.
The South Africans mounted an underwater search, named Operation Resolve, to try to locate the wreckage. The pingers attached to the flight data recorders were not designed for deep ocean use; nevertheless, a two-month-long sonar search for the pingers was carried out before the effort was abandoned on 8 January 1988 when the pingers were known to have stopped transmitting.[14] Steadfast Oceaneering, a specialist deep ocean recovery company in the USA, was contracted at great expense to find the site and recover the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder.[16] The search area is described as being comparable in size to that of the RMS Titanic, with the water at 5,000 metres (16,000 ft) being considerably deeper than any previously successful salvage operation.[17] The wreckage was found within two days of the sonar search of the area commencing.[17]
On 6 January 1989, the cockpit voice recorder was salvaged successfully from a record depth of 4,900 metres (16,100 ft) by the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Gemini,[19] but the flight data recorder was never found.[15]
On 6 January 1989, the cockpit voice recorder was salvaged successfully from a record depth of 4,900 metres (16,100 ft) by the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Gemini,[19] but the flight data recorder was never found.[15]
Apr 15, 2014, 8:46 am
#1648
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: YVR
Programs: AC E50K, NEXUS
Posts: 645
Sea-bed hunt hits hurdle as Bluefin-21 resurfaces...
http://www.smh.com.au/national/missi...415-36ofo.html
It looks like they may need to bring in additional equipment... this is going to take a looooong time!
http://www.smh.com.au/national/missi...415-36ofo.html
It looks like they may need to bring in additional equipment... this is going to take a looooong time!
Apr 15, 2014, 8:54 am
#1649
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: SW London
Programs: BAEC Silver; Hilton Diamond;a miscellany of other hotel non-statuses
Posts: 3,607
It's somewhat of lame calling this a "hurdle". AUVs are given a mission plan to follow, which includes waypoints to follow. Waypoints are lat, long and depth. If the AUV exceeded its maximum operational depth, it's either because it was programmed to do so or because its control system didn't properly maintain the intended course.
. Hopefully profiles can be defined in ways that won't cause aborts.
Apr 15, 2014, 9:42 am
#1650
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Dallas, TX USA
Programs: Rapid Rewards/AAdvantage
Posts: 1,245
>The Bluefin 21 autonomous submersible ran into a hurdle during its search of the sea floor Monday when it hit its maximum depth and automatically returned to the surface, cutting its expedition short by 10 hours.<
I think maybe they need to recalibrate so they can go deeper
I think maybe they need to recalibrate so they can go deeper