Reading the new report here from CNN.....I know take it with a grain. So now the reports indicate the flight climbed to FL450, descended to FL230, then up to FL300 (or something like that).

Just out of curiosity, for those that fly the 777, what is the max altitude that can be pre-selected on the FCP ALT window (I.e. If someone were to just "spin it up"?

Soon after that 737 and Embraer Legacy collided over Brazil, the Brazilian authorities accused the US Crew of doing acrobatic maneuvers because their altitude was all over the place on the military radar. Later it came out that the military radar just isn't that good at resolving altitude at the extremes of it's range.

I suspect something similar here.

Thought this was a little funny, but very wrong.

http:// http://vietnam.craigslist.org/for/4372477162.html

Unlike civilian ATC radar, some military radars have the ability to also track the altitude of a "non-cooperative" target without mode C. This may be imprecise at longer ranges since it depends on a very narrow vertical beam width which travels through various layers of the atmosphere.

That actually might make sense in the context of crew incapacitation and systems failure associated with a fire. The airplane, assuming trimmed out in the first place, might have kept flying without the AP, gradually changing altitude depending on how it was trimmed and how the CG shifted as fuel burned.

So wrong, but I definitely laughed out loud.

This one too:
http://s17.postimg.org/jmrcja97z/iranair.jpg

"retake cockpit " riot starts in back. Steep turns and altitude changes puts all back in their seats. Climb above 40,000 feet, put on oxygen mask, dump cabin pressure. Cabin O2 system does not cope with 40,000 feet pressure altitude. Time of useful conscienceless probably about 30 seconds. Five minutes later most are deceased. Descent to lower altitude, engage autopilot, sit back and wait for fuel to run out. :(


It's beginning to sound like the person in the cockpit knew what he was doing.

The high-altitude recon perspective.

Unfortunately this make sense and there are no big loopholes.

I couldn't see one pilot locking the other out and then taking the airplane on an hours-long excursion...with a pilot and 100 ABPs they would eventually have gotten back into the cockpit. But dumping the cabin would limit mobility in the cabin and eventually they would run out of O2.

One problem-- the limit switches on the outflow valves will limit the cabin to about 14,000' by going fully closed, then the leak rate of the plane and whether the packs are turned off will determine the ultimate cabin altitude. Yes, it would eventually reach the plane's altitude, but it would take long enough that a "cabin riot" could be mounted.

One pilot taking out the other with a crash axe is more likely. Turn off both packs at F450 in a Global and the cabin only rises at about 1,000 fpm. The outflow valves almost immediately go closed trying to maintain the cabin altitude.

GF

True but the masks would drop and the folks in back wouldn't know if the air was OK or not. Most would put on the masks.