Malaysia Airlines 777 missing

Watching CNN live

.....and now the officials are saying they DO in fact have data from the engines that suggest the aircraft flew for 4-5 hours after the last radar hit. They are also saying that none of the data indicates an impact with land or sea.
 
jgheggie said:
Watching CNN live

.....and now the officials are saying they DO in fact have data from the engines that suggest the aircraft flew for 4-5 hours after the last radar hit. They are also saying that none of the data indicates an impact with land or sea.
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A related question, is that data correct. Could there be a time-stamp error?
 
Pilot Fighter said:
A related question, is that data correct. Could there be a time-stamp error?
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No idea.

However, they are saying that the US is sending navy ships and planes to an area in the Indian Ocean far west of the initial search areas. I would imagine that US officials would restrain fom dispatching that amount of resources unless they have a viable reason to.

According to CNN and the "white house" official, the White House had this data over 24 hrs ago but were working to validate it before making any moves.
 
Minuteman said:
This is mostly correct, except that the data is not transmitted directly to Rolls-Royce (at least, I've never encountered a setup like that). The engine and other health reports are transmitted on the same infrastructure as all lthe other ACARS messages that go to the airline -- probably ultimately to a RR-provided ground station at the airline. From there, the engine reports usually forwarded from the airline to the engine manufacturer (via the internet, leased line, or whatever).

Which could be a potential source of delay for the release of this information (although five days is a little extreme). The transfer from the airline ground equipment to RR could simply be a batch job that runs only one per day (or, more likey, every few hours) … it's all part of a system designed to keep dispatch rates high and prevent IFSDs, which requires timely review. I don't know which specific equipment they're using to transfer data; some manufacturers do produce plaintext report files, other store them in a binary format that requires proprietary software to access, which would introduce a minor delay if the airline and the manufacturer's service rep didn't have access (but still not five days).

Whenever there is an incident like this, data gets locked-down (literally). Hopefully they didn't do something odd like disconnecting the systems that relay this data, only to find out a few days later they should have been monitoring for new incoming stuff, and lo, there were more updates waiting.
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Thanks for the correction and insight! I knew it eventually made it into the engine manufacturer's databases, but wasn't sure what route it took to get there. The fact that database software is old and proprietary isn't surprising, given the age of ACARS itself. :)
 
jgheggie said:
No idea.

However, they are saying that the US is sending navy ships and planes to an area in the Indian Ocean far west of the initial search areas. I would imagine that US officials would restrain fom dispatching that amount of resources unless they have a viable reason to.

According to CNN and the "white house" official, the White House had this data over 24 hrs ago but were working to validate it before making any moves.
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Ooh, the US is sending ships to the area.....It's not really that BIG of a deal. The US has maintained a presence in the Persian Gulf for at least a couple of decades now. For them to send a ship from the Gulf to the Indian Ocean is not a stretch of any effort.....
 
JEP said:
Ooh, the US is sending ships to the area.....It's not really that BIG of a deal. The US has maintained a presence in the Persian Gulf for at least a couple of decades now. For them to send a ship from the Gulf to the Indian Ocean is not a stretch of any effort.....
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True. But they didn't bother sending ships anywhere else during the last 5 days of this investigation.
 
canadian_atc said:
My only issue with this, do modern airliners not pre-load their flight plan route on departure, ammended in flight as required?
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Thanks, I would have thought so, and it dashes my theory but since most of my experience was on the ramp I just had no idea how the systems worked exactly.
 
The WSJ article has been updated to indicate that the four additional hours of data was actually from the SATCOM system on the plane indicating it was in standby mode, rather than engine-related ACARS messages:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304914904579434653903086282

The investigators believe the plane flew for a total of up to five hours, according to these people, based on analysis of signals sent by the Boeing BA -2.19% 777's satellite-communication link designed to automatically transmit the status of certain onboard systems to the ground.

Throughout the roughly four hours after the jet dropped from civilian radar screens, these people said, the link operated in a kind of standby mode and sought to establish contact with a satellite or satellites. These transmissions did not include data, they said, but the periodic contacts indicate to investigators that the plane was still intact and believed to be flying.

Investigators are still working to fully understand the information, according to one person briefed on the matter. The transmissions, this person said, were comparable to the plane "saying I'm here, I'm ready to send data."
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But the huge uncertainty about where the plane was headed, and why it apparently continued flying so long without working transponders, has raised theories among investigators that the aircraft may have been commandeered for a reason that appears unclear to U.S. authorities. Some of those theories have been laid out to national security officials and senior personnel from various U.S. agencies, according to one person familiar with the matter.

At one briefing, according to this person, officials were told investigators are actively pursuing the notion that the plane was diverted "with the intention of using it later for another purpose."
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The signals to satellites also are being analyzed to help determine the flight path of the plane after the transponders stopped working. The jet was originally headed for China, and its last verified position was half way across the Gulf of Thailand.
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inigo88 said:
The WSJ article has been updated to indicate that the four additional hours of data was actually from the SATCOM system on the plane indicating it was in standby mode, rather than engine-related ACARS messages:
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I'm wondering if it isn't the satellite that continues sending stand-by messages if a flight isn't closed out properly based on aircraft input.
 
jgheggie said:
True. But they didn't bother sending ships anywhere else during the last 5 days of this investigation.
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True, but then again, the Persian Gulf is a long ways from the Straits of Malaca (sp?) when compared to the Indian Ocean...

It is curious though what 'indication' they have....
 
cencal83406 said:
Unless the flight crew didn't know what they were doing, this is not how an FMS works. If they have properly pre-loaded the flight plan, once you are airborne and select "NAV" (on the RJ, I believe on the Boing series it's call "LNAV" but I'm not familiar with the FMS/AP integration at all), the aircraft will follow the path defined by the FMS. Once the aircraft reaches the last fix, it continues to fly the course (IIRC) it was on last until some external input changes.

I certainly can't speak for everyone else but I would prefer this to be a hijacking. Why? Because if so, since there are no major buildings destroyed in that area of the world, this is more "old school" and there is hope of survivors.
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Thanks for the info - rules that theory out, I was not sure where the systems got their info and what way they interacted.
If there is any hope for survivors that is the best outcome regardless of the cause I agree - but as time goes by and the mystery deepens I really feel for those missing and those missing the missing.
 
Pilot Fighter said:
A related question, is that data correct. Could there be a time-stamp error?
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Just thinking, they should have the spin up time in Kuala Lumper... plus the 40 minutes to point of lost contact and then 4-5 hours data - so the time stamp should not be important, it would all be relative...
 
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