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

reply to post by CatSavage


From your above source:

According to Mr Thomas, the Ocean Shield and the HMS Echo have both left the search area “at speed” and sources had told his there was a possibility they had “triangulated” and located the black box.
He stressed these were unconfirmed reports.

Crikey!! Left the search area at top speed?!?! Why would they do that?

(maybe there's a nuke?! )

reply to post by auroraaus


Where exactly are they speeding too? This is going to be a interesting news update, I hope at least. Hard to get real excited after the past track record so far.

Still wondering about this speed thing

reply to post by onehuman


*trying hardest refraining from making a Keanu Reeves reference*

It might possibly be another one of those misinformation/miscommunication issues.

But like... Why would they speed away? Does that use more fuel? It's days going by ship to the search area..

reply to post by auroraaus


Its kind of like, the good news is we found the black box, the bad news is, it's in a USO and we are getting out of here.

On a serious note now, it also looks like they may have had a return on the plane being there as well. My fingers are crossed for the families.

Watch, this will be the one thing CNN doesn't cover.... Oye

Xcathdra
Question -

Exactly how are the "pings" from the blackbox still working?

I remember them saying those boxes will usually die off around the 30 day mark.

It's a good question... I have been wondering the same thing considering some of the TV talking heads and officials keep saying they can run longer in certain circumstances. Still though I haven't been able to find the specific examples of when it has occurred.

So instead I started trying to find the longest ULB tested lengths in history and it hasn't been going too well either. Most of any thing I can find just confirms the achievement of the minimum 30 day requirement, but then never really gives the specifics as to how long they have actually gone in tests or real life situations. The search continues.

I did end up finding one interesting official document stating they may run up to 60 days or more...


Austrailian Government Australian Transport Safety Board

1:45 a.m. EST, PRESS CONFERENCE......sorry if it's been posted:

www.adelaidenow.com.au...

"The Prime Minister, who is in Shanghai, spoke after an aviation expert claimed the breakthrough discovery had been made."

Good to know the Malaysian police are still investigating the mangosteens!!!

The police have clarified that the crates of mangoesteens on MH370 did not all come from Muar orchards but were just packed in the Johor town.

This followed assertions by Federal Agricultural Martketing Council (Fama) that mangoesteens were not in season in Johor when MH370 disappeared last month.

"I did not say they were from Muar, just that the suppliers were from Muar and that we will investigate to the extent (of who plucked the fruits).

"They were collated in Muar... before they were sent to KLIA (to be loaded onto MH370)," said inspector-general of police Khalid Abu Bakar at a press conference.

MH370 Mangosteens update

reply to post by CatSavage


hey buddy o'cat, try using the button on the reply screen, above the text box which has a square and an arrow pointing to it. Follow the prompts -type in the name of article or something relevant, then paste in at the next prompt the URL.

reply to post by j.r.c.b.


What, What, What ??? Looks like it's going to be a long evening... I better start some coffee.

Warren Truss now Tony contradicting Houston! *tut tut*

Search coordinators say there has been no major breakthrough in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, contradicting prime minister Tony Abbott's comments that authorities were confident they know the location of the black box.

Houston says Nein
and another article thingy:

The latest acoustic signal detected in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was unlikely to be from the missing plane and there had been no major breakthrough in the more than month-long hunt, Australian officials said on Friday.

Analysis of the signal, captured by a listening device buoy and relayed to an Australian ship on Thursday, was unlikely to be related to the aircraft's black boxes, Angus Houston, head of the Australian search, said in a statement.

"On the information I have available to me, there has been no major breakthrough in the search for MH370," Houston added, following unconfirmed reports in some media that the black boxes had been located.

Houston says Noooo

reply to post by OatDelphi


Gonna try to stay awake myself, but just in case, I DVR'd it....seems important & I don't want to miss it. Hope this is it!

reply to post by auroraaus


Ah ha Thanks Aurora, I need all the help I can get. Thanks for your patience

auroraaus
reply to post by onehuman

 

*trying hardest refraining from making a Keanu Reeves reference*

It might possibly be another one of those misinformation/miscommunication issues.

But like... Why would they speed away? Does that use more fuel? It's days going by ship to the search area..

Likely the mission has changed from a SAR operation to a recovery operation. Tool up, important people on board need to be at their posts, perhaps the Ocean Shield is going to be one of the boats that will deploys a DSS... Hard to say, but the best evidence yet that something big is up.

reply to post by auroraaus


Hmmm... So Angus had to pull back what the PM was stating? And they have been doing so good not giving out information that may be emotionally rocking for the families.

No cheese sandwiches for them.

reply to post by OatDelphi


I'm going to have to go with Houston, purely because he's had more experience in this area, military wise but sharing of intelligence wise... He seems to be very cautious and going at pains to make sure he's not giving out false hope.

Cheese sandwich for Houston, a cup of tea, a packet of Iced Vo-Vos and a foot massage too.

Abbott and Truss can just get back to "running" the country...

auroraaus
He seems to be very cautious and going at pains to make sure he's not giving out false hope.

I have to agree with that sentiment. Angus Houston has seemed to never get caught off-guard during the times he was taking questions and he has worked very hard not to work hopes up while producing results. At least in my opinion.

It just sucks because I would imagine up unto this point, Australia was probably one of the only things families were considering as somewhat trustworthy when it came to their news/updates. Surely they all saw the recent news-flashes flying around the net/TV and now they are like, not again.

Abbott brought the guy in to do the job and be the speaker of the search, and then undermines him.

I'm curious, since there are two black boxes that each serve a different function, which do you folks hope they find if they indeed have found one. The tail section box that records the planes mechanical details, or the box from the nose section that records the pilots conversations?

Which would probably be more beneficial at this point?

reply to post by onehuman


They're both in the aft fuselage. The CVR uses microphones in the cockpit but the recorder itself is in the aft fuselage.

Both are important. Sometimes the FDR gives you the important clue, other times the CVR picks up a noise that's the big clue.

reply to post by onehuman


That would be the FDR, if this plane had a decompression, there wont be much information on the CVR, it has only data from the last two hours.

reply to post by sy.gunson

sy.gunson

roadgravel
This is as bad as the person who could not understand how to convert between UTC and local time.

Looks like facts are pretty much frowned upon here.

You mean like the person who frowns upon the fact an aircraft with 7.5 hours fuel which takes off forty minutes past midnight can't fly at low level for 8.5 hours and then another hour and a half to reach Diego Garcia.

[/URL]

To reach Maldives from KUL via IGARI takes 2,109nm at low altitude (10,000ft) and takes 6.8 hours.

This means if MH370 flew to the Maldives at low level it would have reached there at 7:55am Malay time with fuel almost exhausted. It would have required another hour and 25 minutes to reach Diego Garcia - not possible.

Flying at low altitude it would not have been still in the air at 9.15am Malaysian time

A boeing 777 can fly just over 9,000 nautical miles or 17,000 kilometers. That my friend is a fact!

You are assuming the plane didn't have the fuel in its tanks.

You need to take a step back from normality (THIS / Status quo POV), while still staying within the realms of what is possible. If you start with the idea the plane was loaded only with enough fuel to get to Beijing with a little in reserve, then of course it won't reach the Maldives. But this is to rule out the possibility the plane was not an individual effort but a state effort. Only a state and their military and intelligence agency would have the where-with-all to be able to ensure that plane flew all the way to its destination.

Before you discard that theory as ludicrous (which it may well be) you need first to prove it is entirely impossible. On the face of it, in a 'normal world' it is next to impossible. But it is not entirely impossible. The plane has the capacity to fly that far easily. If it was hijacked by remote control, again perfectly feasible, since large airliners have been flown by remote control multiple times already (there is even a video on Youtube) then that takes care of a pilot. The extra fuel would be required, and again this is possible.

Since we have not found the plane. All we are getting is more stories about pingers from the same official sources running the dog and pony show in the southern Indian Ocean for the world media, we should, we must explore all possibilities seriously. If we choose not to, if we choose say, to ridicule possible scenarios alternate to the official line then we should be regarded as being more concerned with the holding to the status quo then searching to expose the truth.