JDiver

That's not good weather at all for divers, and visibility is likely impaired by both waves and turbidity. At this point, they may have to use the towed pinger locator, and the hopes are the French team will be of assistance.

mike1968

even though it was 52 years ago, given the rapid, steep climb, Northwest 705 case file should be pulled up for similarities to crew reaction relative to plane tendencies, performance and ultimately limits (vs. AF which was at cruise altitude I believe).

http://www.pilotfriend.com/disasters...rthwest705.htm

invisible

Really? Last time I've checked on map the last radar contact and debris location were 50km apart.

gilbertaue

The Singaporean team took one along too. Unsure why that hasn't been deployed yet.
Could wave height be an issue for that too?

MSPeconomist

Using these things is slow and expensive.

WindowSeat123

So just to clarify the latest situation, can anyone tell me:

1. How many bodies are found so far? 16?

2. What sort of SAR (search and rescue) assets are deployed in the vicinity of the suspected crash area? What kind of ship or aircraft (i.e. helicopters and fixed wing planes)? How many? And from which country? What kind of techniques are they using for the search of the black box?

IAN-UK

Trajectory of debris following aircraft break-up at altitude is well studied, analysed and reported. The debris field can be remarkable in scale.

To make any meaningful comment on the likely distribution of debris we need to understand the impact of debris ballistic coefficients, terminal velocities of debris, wind velocity variation with altitude. With the relevant parameters, initial velocities and altitude, you might then get an estimate of the surface spread of debris on impact relative to break-up position.

In this case you'd need to then factor in debris movement relative to sea currents, sea depths, sink rates, as well as elapsed time from surface impact.

This breathless paper is not particularly good, but it gives an idea of the difficulties and complications involved in modelling and predicting debris distribution: http://www.isasi.org/Documents/libra...-Cranfield.pdf

weero

Air! I am convinced that there was tons of air. And some if it in the form of winds ... which should also not down a jetliner.
I keep reading that too. It just doesn't resemble the South East Asia I live in.
Absolutely. BKK is North if here and often features some rough air patches. Not as bad as TPE though ... But around SIN or Indonesia I never encountered anything rough ever.
Why would they do that? If they noticed that they were too slow they'd simply crank up the engines and keep on course. And of they don't and stall, they'd not be able to land.
Seems like a far, far fetched hypothesis.

Diogenes1789

Couldn't a pilot avoid a stall in a steep climb by applying maximum power?

IAN-UK

"steep climb" is misleading if the ascent/descent relative to ground is a result of the vertical movement of a column of air.

enzian

Is it not possible for a large plane like a passenger aircraft to recover from a stall?

GreenEnvy

Sure it is, but you need time and height to do so. An oversimplified explanation is point the nose down, the aircraft starts to descend or dive, picks up speed, and once you have enough speed you can pull up and be back to normal.

The Air france crash before, the pilots didn't realize the plane was stalling until it was way to late, so the plane hit the water. We don't know if a similar issue happened here or not.

Also if when you stall you end up losing almost all forward direction, the control surfaces don't work properly, so you end up falling straight down. This is harder to recover from, since air is not flowing over the wings or tail in the normal direction, so pushing down/forward on the controls won't work. Normally when you stall you still have a decent amount of forward speed, just not enough to keep lift on the wings, so you can still recover. If the plane did something like a very steep climb prior to stalling, it could lost almost all forward direction.

simonrp84

You must be living in some kind of bubble then, as your observations disagree with reality.

invisible

Does not stall indicator exist for this?

gilbertaue

Total count up to this evening is 22.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/recovery-teams-narrow/1564592.html

QUOTE
Two South Korean Orion surveillance planes on Friday spotted six bodies, Indonesian air force spokesman Hadi Tjahjanto said in a press release. "After sweeping the area for more than two hours, at 11:58 the (Orions) found three bodies sitting in one row," he said, and another three just minutes later.
UNQUOTE

"Sitting in one row" doesn't sound like an attempted water landing.