Malaysia Airlines 777 missing

I just tuned into CNN to get the up to date info. They had on a poor poor woman whos husband was on the flight. Piers Morgan was asking her questions to get a reaction out of her purely for ratings. This poor woman is going thru an unimaginable event, and CNN is using her for ratings. exploiting her. How terrible the media of this world has become. Willing to do anything to get ahead.
 
brent p h said:
First of all the xponder on a 777 is cannot be turned off.... its "hard wired" into the onboard circuitry.
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Really? So when a crew/plane is on the ground or have landed, they just leave the transponder on 24/7? And if it malfunctions (which has happened) it cannot be turned off? Or if there is a fire/short/smoke from the area and various on board and systems need to be shut/turned off, it cannot be? Good grief. You turn the knob the primary and the back up transponder will be disabled. You can track an aircraft with radar, but it can be more difficult for a variety of reasons. Hijackers as we have seen/learned often turn off the transponders. And your experience in flying any commercial aircraft is what again?
 
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deadstick said:
Yes. Sometimes things need to be turned off.

But the next thing coming will be cameras in the cockpit.
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If you're operating scheduled service, other than the transponder being turned off while you're on the ground, what reasons would you need to turn it off in-flight?
 
A Life Aloft said:
Really? So when a crew/plane is on the ground or have landed, they just leave the transponder on 24/7? And if it malfunctions (which has happened) it cannot be turned off? Or if there is a fire/short and various on board and systems need to be shut/turned off, it cannot be? Good grief. And your experience in flying any commercial aircraft is what again?
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brent p h has been proven wrong on this. Why are you piling on?
 
tomokc said:
brent p h has been proven wrong on this. Why are you piling on?
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I am not piling on, I am just fed up with drivel being posted as fact and his continuing to argue with others that they are incorrect/don't understand. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with his posting history ( a short perusal will be enlightening) , past behavior and actual "experience". Many of us have been down this path before.
 
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A Life Aloft said:
I am not piling on, I am just fed up with drivel being posted as fact. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with his posting history ( a short perusal will be enlightening) , past behavior and actual "experience". Many of us have been down this path before.
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I got that. I posted asking about CNN's coverage which showed a transponder that COULD be turned off, he responded with an NPR link that said it COULDN'T. I then posted in #1525 a B777's captain's confirmation that it COULD (he's a buddy, I sent him a text, and that was his reply). And your post 1542 hit him again.

He hasn't posted since 1509. I think he gets it.
 
He'll be back with something else most likely, trust me. lol And since I just got home from work, I didn't read in detail every post since or before his either.........pages of them since I left this morning and was more caught up and had responded to his post about the plane being in a hangar somewheres with the pax taped up and zip tied up.
 
fholbert said:
The US is helping but you're saying it's not enough.
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Alright I'm done here, you're assement is correct however, at least publicly they're not doing enough.

Just an opinion, when you spend 40x more than any other nation on earth on your military, it may be called on more often, especially for humanitarian reasons.

We're not talking going to war here
 
NiallG said:
It's hard to tell fact from fiction and what can be lost in translation or interpretation or is deliberate misinformation - but at least this thread allows some of us to understand a bit more about the possibilities and practicalities of the popular press related theories and even share links to sources...

mh370_satinfo-jpg.27254


Only post this because there seems to be something like an official stamp on it... but anyone could make a stamp like that suppose.

(source: https://twitter.com/chicoharlan/status/444770687064875009/photo/1 )
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This is the best post I've seen in this thread so far. That image explains the evidence investigators are using to interpret the SATCOM data. The satellite in that image is Inmarsat-3 F1 IOR (Indian Ocean Region), located at 64.5 degrees east longitude at an altitude of 35,800 km above the earth.

Couverture_satellite_inmarsat.svg

(Source: Wikipedia)

Each one of the concentric rings in @NiallG 's photo represents an azimuth angle in degrees from the antenna, with 90 degrees being straight down. My 'educated guess' is that each time the SATCOM unit on the airplane sent its "keep alive" digital ping, the satellite included the inclination angle from its antenna and signal strength as part of the log file it sent back to Inmarsat. What's a little surprising is that only one angle is known, the inclination angle between vertical and horizontal. I was expecting they could use a 2-D spherical coordinate system with both a declination (angle from vertical) as well as an azimuth (heading angle), but the IOR satellite was launched back in 1996 so the on board equipment isn't exactly brand new. From the photo you can see that they're focusing their search at a declination angle from the satellite antenna of 40 degrees, but since there's no azimuth (heading) data shown, they have to consider two cases of it either going north OR south. That's why there are two red lines shown on the map.

Pretty neat stuff! It sounds like investigators are totally in uncharted territory with this, but it's pretty creative in the absence of other leads. I found this New York Times article last night which goes into a little more detail on Inmarsat's involvement, and has some statements from the company's VP:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/15/world/asia/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-370.html?hp&_r=1
 
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fholbert said:
I thought the new transponders shut off when at taxi speeds assuming your GPS is connected.
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G1000 and the Garmin transponders do this but it's more for convenience to the pilot (not having to switch between STBY and ALT on the ground all the time) and there's still standby and off buttons. I recall you're a former controller so I was wondering, were there ever times in your career where you had to ask pilots to "stop squawk" or stop squawking mode C? The only cases I'm familiar with are for formation flying, where the wingmen have to squawk standby so they aren't constantly setting off radar conflict alert alarms. :)
 
A Life Aloft said:
He'll be back with something else most likely, trust me. lol And since I just got home from work, I didn't read in detail every post since or before his either.........pages of them since I left this morning and was more caught up and had responded to his post about the plane being in a hangar somewheres with the pax taped up and zip tied up.
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Yeah, I saw that one too. Some other boards offer an [Ignore] option, which would be nice here (hint, hint).

I'm just tired of people making positive statements on subjects they know nothing about, but acting as if they do.

Sorry if you felt I clobbered you. That wasn't my intent.
 
canadian_atc said:
Alright I'm done here, you're assement is correct however, at least publicly they're not doing enough.

Just an opinion, when you spend 40x more than any other nation on earth on your military, it may be called on more often, especially for humanitarian reasons.

We're not talking going to war here
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This is a most recent list I could find in a quick search of resources currently brought in by the countries currently involved in the search:
http://www.firstpost.com/world/full...g-mh370-jet-1432749.html?utm_source=hp-footer

Another tally I found from today states "Thirteen countries, 57 ships and 48 aircraft." Certainly there are more satellites and other technology that have been/are being used as well. I imagine the CIA is also involved and other US governmental agencies/resources. When wreckage is found, I can only assume that more and different resources from the US will be sent in, such as submarines and technology/equipment to detect objects under the sea.

There are, I am betting certain political hurdles which are and need to be negotiated in all of this as well.

This event is upsetting for everyone.
 
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tomokc said:
Yeah, I saw that one too. Some other boards offer an [Ignore] option, which would be nice here (hint, hint).

I'm just tired of people making positive statements on subjects they know nothing about, but acting as if they do.

Sorry if you felt I clobbered you. That wasn't my intent.
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No probs. Everyone is understandably very frustrated over this event.
 
inigo88 said:
G1000 and the Garmin transponders do this but it's more for convenience to the pilot (not having to switch between STBY and ALT on the ground all the time) and there's still standby and off buttons. I recall you're a former controller so I was wondering, were there ever times in your career where you had to ask pilots to "stop squawk" or stop squawking mode C? The only cases I'm familiar with are for formation flying, where the wingmen have to squawk standby so they aren't constantly setting off radar conflict alert alarms. :)
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All of the above.
  • Stop altitude squawk any time mode c differs by more than 300 feet.
  • Squawk standby when aircraft are joining formation in the air or when rookies were flying formation.
  • Pretty common to ask ground control to have their aircraft squawk standby because they were are cluttering up the scope.
  • When I was a young smart ass controller and someone would depart with their transponder in standby mode my standard line was. " Cessna 225 I'm not receiving your IFF, turn the o-n o-f-f switch to o-n."
 
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