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from the many-eyes-make-all-bugs-shallow-sort-of-thing dept.
Taco Cowboy writes:
"Yep, it's that ill-fated Boeing 777 with 239 on board which has disappeared without a trace. Even after 4 days of search by a fleet of over 50 vessels and 40+ planes and an increasing number of satellites, no one has yet find that plane, or any part of it.
If you have free time and want to help out, here's your chance.
A US satellite company is releasing high-def photos of the sea near or at the area where that plane was last tracked, in hoping that people can help finding clues in regarding the whereabout of that missing plane.
The link to that crowdsourcing event is at http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/352096/scitec h/socialmedia/us-based-satellite-imaging-company-crowdsources-search-for-missing-mh370-plane. The mapping can be viewed on the Tomnod site here."
[Ed's Note: I tried the Tomnod link 3 times and was only successful on 1 occasion. It seems they are having problems coping with the response.]
(Score: 4, Informative) by bucc5062 on Wednesday March 12 2014, @11:11AM
When you plug in the coordinates into google maps it does put a point off the coast of Vietnam.
8°22'30.23"N 108°42'22.26"E
The description of the (object)'s direction was such that it could have been traveling towards Malaysia which would support a turn around action. It also factors in the observation of it being on the west side of Malaysia at one point.
However, there is no real time frame for the observation. I see a timestamp at the top, but not something that says and I saw this at o'clock so people could verify the sighting. In the end this would not be hard to dispute if a hoax and good information if true.
If an engine was on fire it would not take long to put it out so the time frame would fit. The idea that a complete electrical failure occurred thus rendering communications inop seems very unlikely. Even if a "main bus" went out either a back up system would take over basic flight controls or, with a still flying airplane the pilots would do anything possible to communicate including cell phones of passengers. Then like everyone else, it is easy to guess, harder to wait for facts.
The more things change, the more they look the same
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Wednesday March 12 2014, @01:57PM
> The idea that a complete electrical failure occurred thus rendering communications inop seems very unlikely.
However, it could have simply been bad conditions for radio communication and the pilots were unable to establish contact before crashing.
In support of this theory is a report that vietnamese air control had to ask another plane to relay a message to the now missing plane [nst.com.my] and even that contact had a lot of interference.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @06:08PM
An Air India 777 had to return yesterday because their transponder stopped working almost immediately after take-off. They were still within VHF range so it wasn't a big deal - they just had to dump a lot of fuel to get to maximum landing weight. Small incidents like that happen all the time and are only posted on forums like pprune (which I read too much at the moment). Ironically, Boeing benefits from all the attention being paid to this 777 disappearance since CNN barely mentioned yet another Nightm...Dreamliner emergency landing (in Hawaii due to an engine failure) and that would've been a much bigger deal otherwise.
However, it's easy to be wise on the ground when something happens in the air. First of all the rule is 1. aviate, 2. navigate 3. communicate. They might have thought that they have a communication problem and some minor other malfunction and decided to turn around and try communicating over VHF as soon as they're within range. If they had the sort of "handle it without bothering anyone, if possible" attitude as the crew of Swissair 111, it would be a very plausible scenario. The Swissair crew much downplayed the severity of their situation in all communications and instead of landing their burning plane overweight, opted to dump fuel, prepare the cabin etc. and then suddenly it was too late. The flightpath after their (MH370) turn, however, would've enabled them to communicate over VHF later and the only reason for that that I can think of, is slow onset of hypoxia. In any hijacking scenario at least some passengers would've tried using their phones. Unless half the people on board were hijackers, there's no way they could've stopped sms typing. People have sent sms whilst being fired at in all sorts of incidents (like the mass shooting in Norway) and once you've typed it in, your phone will keep trying to send it until it succeeds or runs out of battery.
I think a pilot suicide can also be ruled out by now since why would a suicidal pilot that has locked the other one out of the cockpit bother with turning off the transponder and flying for hours instead of crashing it then and there? And any pilot being locked out from the cockpit would definitely be able to break the door (with assistance) fairly quickly.
(Score: 2) by bucc5062 on Wednesday March 12 2014, @06:17PM
Damn you for planting the seed to look at that forum. As an inactive pilot (for many years) I still like to keep in touch. To find such a site may be the end of me. /humor
They got some wild ideas going on over there for sure.
The more things change, the more they look the same