Beijing-bound MAS plane carrying 239 people missing as of 20 mins ago.

reply to post by spirited75


The portions that are going to leave an oil slick are still going to fall a lot faster than the debris that would float.

reply to post by raedar


The weird movement is caused by the plane switching between radars, and the subsequent re-syncing of the position of the plane.

Here is a link to the flight in question: LINK

If you watch the 'Radar' box in the sidebar, you can see that there is a pause as it switches from radar T-WMKN1 to radar F-WSSS1. During this transition, it extrapolates the position of the plane based on the flight trajectory at the beginning of the transition, can't find the plane on this new path, and backtracks slowly as it tries to pick up the signal from the plane. Eventually, it switches back to T-WMKN1, finding the actual position of the plane and causing the icon to speed off at an alarming rate to catch up with the actual position, then the whole thing just disappears.

On the flight summary (LINK), the bottom-half of the flight (below Philippines) is missing, accompanied by a pop-up saying: "Please note that part of this flight track was out of our coverage". This is not uncommon, and a similarly-cut flight path was produced on the 5th March (LINK), 4th March (LINK), 3rd (LINK), etc.

There is very poor coverage in that region, so this sort of thing is not uncommon.

reply to post by Zaphod58


well since there are several different pieces of plane and
they are all being affected by the winds aloft and the force
of gravity, they will all
be pushed in the same direction by both those forces.
at the same time. differences being pieces with large surface area inversely proportional to mass.


a bowling ball will have vastly different aerodynamic characteristics
than a piece of typing paper both dropped from 35,000 feet.

a majority of plane pieces will behave
like a bowling ball more than a piece of typing paper.

I'd still like to know where news outlets, some real news outlets, got the story on it landing in China, with some specifics such as the transponder malfunctioning and requiring a Chinese air force escort, then suddenly retracting it. Where would they get such a story to print on their site? I mean it has to be a source they utilize regularly or they would have had issues with reporting it. I posted two links to that story, but a google search will show dozens of results.

So the odd information from this flight are:

1. Report of a landing in Mainland China
   
2. Report of stolen passports used to purchase tickets
   
3. Report of large contingency onboard from military semiconductor company
   
4. Lack of debris in area of reported crash zone
   

Am I missing anything?

It should be noted that some airports of the world don't check passports too closely:

www.riskandforecast.com...
At least ten passengers on the ill-fated Air India Express flight(crashed on 5-22-10) from Dubai were using fraudulent passports, it was revealed. ...
India’s ambassador to the UAE, MK Lokesh, said 10 passports had been “tampered with”. Irregularities included false addresses and photos that did not match the user.

reply to post by spirited75


And a majority of the aircraft is heavy. The 777 is almost entirely aircraft aluminum with very little in composites. So most of it is going to be the bowling ball.

spirited75
reply to post by pheonix358

 

Phoenix, don't get confused with the legendary phoenix bird.

Terminal velocity of a falling body is @125 miles per hour
or about 55mps,
or about 180 fps.

Given that, the debris would be as intact and recognizable as
dropping a plate from the top of a diving board
to the bottom of an empty swimming pool.

or a television from the top of a three story building

Why don't you have a read of this Terminal Velocity and get back to me. There are so many things affecting terminal velocity that claiming a single figure is just plain silly.

Your given speed is for a skydive, arms and legs outstretched. Bring the arms and legs into the body increases it to 200 mph. A wing falling point first would be far greater. If the plane hit with its engines running it can exceed terminal velocity, easily!

P

Varhaard Could it have been an asteroid strike?

It sure could have!! There is at least a one in 80 billion chance it was exactly that! Good catch!

reply to post by Leyton


Thank you for knowing and sharing this info,

Loving your avatar, as a side note

reply to post by Bilk22


Why is Vietnam reporting no radar contact? They would have had to be in radar range of them at some point with their fuel load.

The lack of debris is common in ocean crashes. I can think of two where they had them on radar when they went down and it took 2-3 days to find the wreckage.

opethPA

starviego
This link has the FBI now getting involved. Hmmmmm....

Which is pretty common any time Americans die abroad in scenarios like this.

The FBI investigates crimes, not air accidents. So the FBI dispatches agents to travel 10,000 miles to investigate when there is at this point very little evidence of air terrorism, with the investigation barely a day old? Or does the FBI know something that we don't?

reply to post by rockflier


Not sure which link you are referring to, but this is the one I put up in the middle of the night. It switches languages on occasion, but they are trying to cover multiple news feeds. CNN being one of them as well as foreign channels. Hope this helps.

Live feed

reply to post by starviego


The FBI is always involved in initial investigations of aircraft accdents. Once it's determined it was an accident they drop out and leave it to the NTSB. If it wasn't they take over.

reply to post by onehuman

That is precisely the one. Many thanks!!

starviego
The FBI investigates crimes, not air accidents. So the FBI dispatches agents to travel 10,000 miles to investigate when there is at this point very little evidence of air terrorism, with the investigation barely a day old? Or does the FBI know something that we don't?

The FBI investigates many incidents of Americans dying abroad when the circumstances are not immediately known.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Lauda Air 004 26/5/91 767-300 . just for comparison as to what can happen

reverser deployed in flight ,no mayday call ,in flight breakup from stress,wreckage spread over large area

first hull loss for 767

"examined the wreckage and concluded that the largest fragment was about 5 metres (16 ft) by 2 metres (6.6 ft), "about half the size of the largest piece in the Lockerbie crash."

reply to post by onehuman


Thanks for the live feed link!

I'm watching it now.

reply to post by pheonix358


Hitting the water at speed is much the same as hitting the ground at speed, water does not compress.

If the aircraft came straight down from 35000,
there would not be anything left to find on the surface.
Heavy parts would instantly sink and lighter parts would disintegrate.

phoenix, you will not educate me at all on terminal
velocity by giving me a web site to reference.

the difference between my figure of 125 mph and your
figure of a person extending arms and legs to become
aerodynamically clean to reach a velocity of 200 mph is academic.

at 125 mph object hits water at 185 feet per second.
at 200 mph object hits water at 300 feet per second.

a majority of pieces of a plane would fall at 125 mph or less.

i seriously doubt that a wing will be able to align itself
to fall point first for more that a few seconds.


Why don't you have a read of this Terminal Velocity and get back to me.
There are so many things affecting terminal velocity that claiming a single figure is just plain silly.


there are two things that affect terminal velocity:
1. gravity, -32fps/s
2. surface area in relation to mass.

the rest is merely mental gymnastics.



Your given speed is for a skydive, arms and legs outstretched.
Bring the arms and legs into the body increases it to 200 mph.
A wing falling point first would be far greater.

If the plane hit with its engines running it can exceed terminal velocity, easily!

if the plane actually had its engines running then the equation
dealing with terminal velocity would not apply, that is when it is called CFIT.

i doubt the engines were running, sounds like an instantaneous
loss of electrical power source and engines need electricity to operate.


keep trying though.

There may be more pax flying on bogus credentials:

my.news.yahoo.com...
Two more Europeans passengers with suspect identities onboard missing MH370

The FBI smells a rat, and so do I!

ps
There was also an early report that the one Russian onboard had been located safe back in Russia.

reply to post by starviego


Doesn't surprise me.

I'm already almost 100% certain in my own mind that this was a terrorist bomb of some kind...

We'll see what happens.