Malaysia airlines plane may have crashed 239 people on board #21

[PrairieWind]

Hatfield. I agree that even if the batteries have failed, if that was indeed the black box pinger that they heard yesterday, they have a pretty good idea of where to look. It will take the Bluefin a while perhaps, but I think it would just be a matter of time before the wreckage is found.

 

[aa9511]

Even if the battery ran out, they still have a basic idea where the pings were heard and it should be enough to use the "Bluefin 21" Submersible Torpedo looking device to use its side-scan sonar device to try and locate the plane.

It seems they made at least 2 passes from what I heard. It may not be ideal but it should be enough to start searching with Bluefin 21 if they cannot get another signal.

The problem of course is if they start to have trouble locating it with the Bluefin 21 then they may be too quick to chalk it up as a pinging noise not from the black box.

Very true. Let's hope and pray.

 

[CoverMeCagney]

Right, sorry to ask a technical question on here as totally off topic, but it's affecting my daily usage of Websleuths, grrrrrrrr!!

In the last couple of days all the graphics on here are just red x's. I mean things like the "thanks" "quote" buttons, and the little online light next to usernames, also the font buttons above ^^^^, just a row of little red x's. I can see photos no problem, and tried right clicking to show images, didn't work. Neither has a disk clean or clearing cookies. The most annoying thing is when I click on "thanks" (for I can still click on it!) it updates the page sloooooowly rather than just adding my name to the thanks list. And I used to be able to just hover over the search tab and it brought up a little box, now I get redirected to the proper search page.

It's driving me mad and making it hard to navigate the site properly (also affecting Ebay, I can't see any stars, just this red x on white background) and it looks messy!

I confess to being a bit of a techno-dunce, so if anyone can help (in laymans terms!) please message me, I don't want to clog up the thread and will delete this quite soon.

 

[Hatfield]

IF the battery has not run out, I have NO DOUBT that Ocean Shield will find it. The question is - has the battery run out??? I am just amazed that one day they can hear it for 2 hours, and the next day nothing. Unfortunately, that sounds to me like the box stopped transmitting the signal. I am trying to stay positive though.......

Yah it seems strange that they cant find the sound again. Maybe it was on its last leg and maybe they were lucky to even hear it at all.

When a battery is dead and a unit/device is shut off then sometimes when you turn it back on, you will get another short boost of energy from a battery before it dies again. Wondering if this pinger device has some type of shut off that when it drops too low it doesnt try to ping and maybe when it slowly gets enough juice it goes back on for a little while until it dies again.

Wondering if they may have caught the device in its last few gasps.

It seems I heard when a battery runs out that you get a small surge right near the very end of its life. They may have caught that last gasp just in nick of time.

Half of me is wondering if they were really hearing the black box at all. But my other half is telling me if they heard it for over 2 hours then it had to be it.

 

[aa9511]

Just a quick answer from my side - ajc - I am not having the same problem so it must be your computer. But unfortunately, don't know how to fix it.

 

[aa9511]

Yah it seems strange that they cant find the sound again. Maybe it was on its last leg and maybe they were lucky to even hear it at all.

When a battery is dead and a unit/device is shut off then sometimes when you turn it back on, you will get another short boost of energy from a battery before it dies again. Wondering if this pinger device has some type of shut off that when it drops too low it doesnt try to ping and maybe when it slowly gets enough juice it goes back on for a little while until it dies again.

Wondering if they may have caught the device in its last few gasps.

It seems I heard when a battery runs out that you get a small surge right near the very end of its life. They may have caught that last gasp just in nick of time.

Half of me is wondering if they were really hearing the black box at all. But my other half is telling me if they heard it for over 2 hours then it had to be it.

Yah....I think it was the black box, am just amazed at this change of luck. I dunno, maybe (hopefully) they will get the signal again.

First I kept thinking, wow, what a miracle that they found the black box (!!!!!!). I just couldn't believe it, what are the chances???!

And then the next day, wow, what a one-in-million or whatever chances that right after they hear it, the battery runs out.

It's just like, up, down, up, down, up, down.

 

[Amee]

nearly 6am in Perth, hoping today is another positive day for search and rescue.

 

[aa9511]

Ditto to that Amee!

 

[CARIIS]

Hi guys !

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, now that mechanical has finally gotten off the chart we have to realize that whomever executed this did so with much planning and skill. Once again Qwest has no clue what he is talking about (ATC never released/CVR never released/FDR never released/just not frontier of technology blab la hot air!).

A notion that whomever did this did not pull the circuit breaker for both CVR and FDR is pretty remote after all the effort to conceal whatever this about. He keeps spewing falsehoods. Both recorders do have a circuit breaker aboard in the event of electrical (fire) possibilities. Just like in a home, everything electrical has a cut off.

He keeps saying one can’t kill the DFR is not accurate. The FDR records for a very long time (25 hours I believe). IF the breaker is pulled at the beginning of the flight there WILL be a bunch of data from 25 hours prior to takeoff when the aircraft became flight 370.
So, we can spend millions , and wind up getting no more answers than known. Just a reality – I know we have to keep going for a while but at some point we might have to put this in the Amelia category!

He is one of the mist respected of NTSB amazing group:
Should MH370’s wreckage be found and along with it the Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder, the question remains of what useful data will be retrieved. We noted previously that the FDR has 25 hours of recording capability but the CVR has only two before its data is overwritten. There has also been concern that these were disabled before or shortly after the event began.
Two 777 pilots we talked to believe it’s not possible to disable the recorders from the cockpit, unlike earlier Boeing airplanes (Boeing declined comment). Feith said that disabling the FDR would require a pilot to go into the electronics bay, with access only through a hatch in the passenger cabin near the cockpit. It is possible to pull the circuit breaker on the CVR in the cockpit, he said.

Since access to the electronics bay is via the passenger cabin where anyone could see this, we asked Feith how this could be accomplished. Noting that he doesn’t normally engage in speculation, Feith provided this hypothesis:
“The pilot could have ‘dumped the cabin’ and induced hypoxia, and could have gone into the bay to disable” the recorder while on his walk-around oxygen, Feith said. Nonetheless, all data retained up to any disabling would be available for analysis and this could yield useful information from which to draw certain conclusions.
http://leehamnews.com/2014/03/31/mh370-wreckage-probable-cause-may-never-be-found-says-ex-ntsb-investigator/#more-11798

 

[mck16]

Wouldn't it be a crock if the only predictable actually happened? What are the chances of that it would actually go dead on the exact 30 days? This whole thing seems doomed. Getting very discouraged and feeling very sorry for the poor families. jmo

 

[Intermezzo]

I would have thought Perth would have had some good radar to spot the plane the night it went down. It seems strange that Perth would not have seen it on some kind of radar.

For Radar #2 it seems the plane is on the very outer edge of that range of that one.

Been wondering if the hijacker/pilot/etc knew the depths in that area and was choosing for one of the deepest spots around there.

BBM

I have thought that as well

 

[Amee]

April 08, 2014 12:00AM

Air Chief Marshall Houston said the black box beacon’s battery must be getting close to the end of its life. “We’re already one day past the advertised shelf life,’’ he said. “We hope that it keeps going for a little bit longer.’

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...eabed-for-mh370/story-e6frg95x-1226877294877#

 

[aa9511]

IMO, whoever did this did NOT know about the satellite pings, and did NOT know that the engine actually communicates with the satellite via this pings even if the transponder/ACARS, etc. is turned off.

Which makes me think - wouldn't Captain Shah have known about this satellite-plane ping communication? Or at least, have some idea that there is this hourly communication, even if he might not have known of the details of it. It seems to me he would have had an idea seeing how passionate he was about aviation.

JMO.

 

[cady]

Lots of freaky anomalies in the event from start to (hopefully) finish. Biggest mystery since the "holy grail!" JMO

 

[cady]

IMO, whoever did this did NOT know about the satellite pings, and did NOT know that the engine actually communicates with the satellite via this pings even if the transponder/ACARS, etc. is turned off.

Which makes me think - wouldn't Captain Shah have known about this satellite-plane ping communication? Or at least, have some idea that there is this hourly communication, even if he might not have known of the details of it. It seems to me he would have had an idea seeing how passionate he was about aviation.

JMO.

He MAY have known, but didn't count on the math wizards to figure it out?

 

[Amee]

Defence Minister Senator David Johnston will provide an update on the search for MH370 at 11am WST (1pm AEST).

 

[Tiepos]

Right, sorry to ask a technical question on here as totally off topic, but it's affecting my daily usage of Websleuths, grrrrrrrr!!

In the last couple of days all the graphics on here are just red x's. I mean things like the "thanks" "quote" buttons, and the little online light next to usernames, also the font buttons above ^^^^, just a row of little red x's. I can see photos no problem, and tried right clicking to show images, didn't work. Neither has a disk clean or clearing cookies. The most annoying thing is when I click on "thanks" (for I can still click on it!) it updates the page sloooooowly rather than just adding my name to the thanks list. And I used to be able to just hover over the search tab and it brought up a little box, now I get redirected to the proper search page.

It's driving me mad and making it hard to navigate the site properly (also affecting Ebay, I can't see any stars, just this red x on white background) and it looks messy!

I confess to being a bit of a techno-dunce, so if anyone can help (in laymans terms!) please message me, I don't want to clog up the thread and will delete this quite soon.

Try clearing your cache and then restarting your browser, if you haven’t already. The instructions are slightly different for each browser, so you’ll want to Google.

 

[Intermezzo]

I have seen pictures of the units and they have date stamps, month/year as to when they were last serviced. I wonder if there are logs kept and they know from that that the FDR was coming up to having it's battery replaced. If so it's possible they know it is on the short end of its life versus having just received a fulled charged battery. jmo idk

Dukane Seacom, pinger manufacturer, said pinger was due to be replaced in 2012..they did not service/ replace the batteries and don't know If Malaysia didn't do it, or had a 3rd party replace the batteries..according to Malaysia the unit was not due to be replaced June 2014

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/04/us/flight-370-pinger-batteries/

Manufacturer raises questions about Flight 370 pinger batteries

 

[mck16]

what is so disheartening to me is that of all the 'experts' you can't find 3 that agree. all the information we are being fed is contradictory. one guy just said that the box doesn't stop pinging, the pings just get weaker and weaker. so, when does it die? is there any one of the experts we can believe? if so, tell me who. tia

 

[aa9511]

I guess there will be more information coming out during Don Lemon's Special Presentation tonight....that's usually when the press conferences, etc.i in Australia happen.