ELT, old or new, will not work underwater. Maybe a few feet...Maybe. Radio doesn't travel through water.

If it were floating on the water, it would work.

OK. What is SONAR then? The HC-130's Cook Tracker picked up re-entering space craft in the ionosphere, S-band signal sine waves and the ELT that was under the Sea of Ohkotsk. The radio frequency of an ELT is 121.5 and 243.0. The pinger is ultra low frequency and you may not hear it on your radio, but a P-3 or my HC-130N did. It was built to find objects under the water, of the highest national priority.

Someone posted this on another site: NOAA data for 4 days ago shows a major disturbance of three of the buoys west of Smith Island (in the Andaman Sea - also known as the Nicobar). Displacement of the first buoy shows approximately 1500 feet (down). Weather doesn't seem to have been severe enough to cause this type of disturbance.

According to Wikipedia, 571 feet. We saw the trawler bringing the submersibles for the Soviets, and they weren't the only ones down there.

SONAR is soundwaves...

The "pinger" is an acoustic device as well, not RF.

Even VLF only goes down to 20 meters below the surface. Submarines use that for communications when they would come up near the surface. Only ELF frequencies can penetrate down to submarine operating depths. VHF and UHF have far less penetration that is limited to just below the surface.

I don't think an ELT is useful for SAR if sunk underwater very deeply. 25 feet+ I doubt it. RE: radio waves

I would think a US military/intel agency has the ability to detect a large, odd, object in the ocean tho and am certain we will hear some news in a few days yeah/neah on located wreckage. SAR performed by Vietnam, no, US agencies, yes

If I am not mistaken,the ELT and the FDR both communicate through VHF and UHF frequency, and a VLF pinger, and we picked up the pinger in the vicinity of on Northern Hokkaido enroute to the AO. You are correct about the sound waves of SONAR. That is why we had a Radio Operator on the HC-130 and knuckle dragging pilots to fly the airplane. He got the DF steer off the tracker, and I thought it was only possible with VHF, UHF, S-Band and HF. The pinger indicated location through receiver intensity. Somehow we were accurate enough for 2 SU-15's and three Mig 23's to launch on us. This was also the only mission I ever flew where the PJ's did not want to jump.

Sorry, I edited my post as I was discovering more information:

ELTs are radio only, no sonar. Modern ones use EHF, older ones VHF. As was mentioned only ELF radio can penetrate any depth of water and that requires an antenna array larger than almost any other structure on earth. The US navy used to use that to communicate with subs. Maybe you had that?

FDR and/or CVR have a sonar pinger activated by exposure to water. That sound would be detectable only by military sonar receivers or specialized civilian gear. It would not be detectable by a radio receiver, I don't think FDR/CVR even have radio beacons...assumption being if the wreckage is on land the ELT would provide the beacon.

Not sure how you located KAL unless the ELT was floating or very, very shallow. Aircraft can easily use sonobouys to detect/locate underwater sound sources, but it requires special onboard receiving gear normally found on navy aircraft.

No, not useful.

No they don't. If you can solve that problem the patent will be worth hundreds of millions and will put every submarine in the world out of business. Two-billion-dollar subs are only useful because they CAN'T be found easily.

To find anything on the bottom will require military or specialized civilian vessels with sonar gear to search the ocean floor one meter at a time. Not practical until you narrow down the search area.

I can think of one potential means by which the crash location could have been detected but I would have thought they would have announced that by now if that was the case.

This. FO is suspect number one. Only someone possessing the knowledge of how to make an aircraft go dark to the rest of the world could have pulled this off. I can't state this with certainty, but I don't think a hijacker/terrorist has made it past the cabin door since 9/11, and don't see it happening on this flight. If they did, I doubt they would know how to disable the ACARS, transponder, and anything else that could be used to track a 777. I don't suspect the captain, since he had been flying since 1981. Investigators need to start digging into the FO's background for signs of radicalism ASAP.

Where is that in reference to the last known position?

Not many people could turn off the plane's Transponder, ACARS and ADS without prior knowledge.

If one pilot leaves to go to the bathroom, it is hard to brake back in if the other pilot refuses entry with the new doors.

A 31 year old memory of an event is not nearly as reliable as I thought. We did drop sonobuoys and a device on day 2. Day one was a long involved event from launch off Rescue Alert out of Kadena and reached the AO and ran an electronic creeping line search. The area was a denial zone and each event was extremely provocative on both sides. Thanks to all for helping me clarify my recollection. We did not usually drop sonobouys, though we did carry them, and although searching for objects underwater was not a daily occurrence, we had the capability. The event was so sensitive and fluid, I doubt any of us will ever know the entire story.

FWIW an expert was on the tube explaining exactly this. Doesn't mean the receiving phone is actually ringing, just that it is "looking" for that phone.

Condolences to the family and loved ones of the 239 on board. A lot of wild speculations here. Maybe we should call off the witch hunt and wait until we have facts from credible sources.

Dead men tell no tales…let's not tar and feather any of the crew based on assumptions.

Agreed. What an insult to make accusations against the FO who may have died fighting to save this aircraft and all of it's passengers.

Especially those that were made up while wearing a tinfoil hat. I think many people here could benefit from understanding Occam's razor. What's more likely? A complex hijacking scheme in which a qualified airline pilot (with almost 3000 hours, gasp!) locked the Captain out of the cockpit, disabled every automatic reporting system on the aircraft in order to achieve some yet-to-be-determined objective or a catastrophic failure at a 3rd world airline with a likely spotty maintenance program?

this thread has really turned into the National Enquirer with some of the posts

Is this related?
 

I happened to look at the Spot Coverage Map today, and noticed that they are having "technical issues impacting connectivity and service levels" in exactly the area where the plane went missing.

Is this because of the massive search efforts? Or some other cause?
Anyone have more information?

http://www.findmespot.com/images/spo...e_feb12_14.jpg

Any 777 avionics techs out there know if the FMS is fed any wireless signals?

I've flown two planes where the ACARS is integrated with the FMS, at least the control head.

Unfortunately I see where you're headed with this. If there's a physical path for the electrons, a good enough software person can probably find a way in. Direct remote control would be unlikely, insertion of a malignant subroutine more feasible.

But that would require very specialized knowledge of the exact gear involved...I doubt the bad guys have anybody with that experience. The vast majority of black hat hackers would draw the line at helping some shadowy entity hack an airliner's control system. They're crooks but not typically mass murders, and they know the inevitable response to that ping will be delivered not virtually but in person...they don't want a leading role in the next navy SEAL movie.

Good to see that WAG's are still abundant and thriving in 2014. :rolleyes:

All those scenarios of stealing/hacking an aircraft, would be too complex to pull off without massive coordination. It's likely the simple answer, fire/smoke in the cockpit crippled the aircraft, knocked out the equipment, and the plane flew to a crash site that is perhaps a thousand miles away. It may be the case that this aircraft is never found.

That's what I've been saying all along. Terror doesn't make sense if nobody knows about it.

There are serious logical problems with every other scenario, so even if it's unlikely cockpit fire is the only thing that isn't in conflict with one or more facts.

Now if you show me a background or personal issue with one of the pilots, that would move to the top of the list. A fire might disable all comms, but a pilot could definitely do so. But I'm giving the pilots the full benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.

I think it will be found, one way or another. With a modern US manufactured airplane involved the USG will probably not give up on this and they do have resources. Might not be this year though.

It might even be down in the jungle, not in the water, which will make it nearly impossible to find unless some local stumbles upon it.

Oh, wait, Found it! http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...ollapse-n50821

"City officials said the buildings are destroyed. The cause of the apparent explosion is not known; members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force have responded to the scene out of an abundance of caution, authorities said."


(too soon?)

If it's the jungle, satellites will have already captured imagery of the site...eventually after enough manpower (or CPU power) is applied the imagery will be identified. A fully-loaded 777 would leave a big enough mark to spot...unlike say a C-172.

Everything I have read about him leads me to believe he had discriminating tastes:


Young blonde says missing Malaysia Airlines pilot invited her and her friend to ride in the cockpit with him for entire flight in 2011 | Mail Online

At least save the slams for after the find the airplane.

Interesting.....

A touch irresponsible maybe, but doesn't seem particularly devout or radicalized. Or maybe visitors are allowed on MH?

(I'm no avionics/airman expert by any means so please educate me since this is more of a question), If the aircraft had altered course and crossed over land, wouldn't a country's radar have picked up the aircraft and had fighters/local craft investigate it if the craft didn't respond/wasn't scheduled to be flying there?

Depends on where and how high. An undeveloped area (ie jungle) not frequented by aircraft may not have ATC radar coverage.

Radar coverage is more limited at low altitudes.

Also with the transponders off, a primary return might just be random GA aircraft (some countries allow that, some don't).

Just because an unknown aircraft is flying around, that does not mean the military goes to DEFCON One. This depends on the country, in China an unknown aircraft would be intercepted for sure. In the US, we have thousands of unknown aircraft buzzing around as we speak (no flight plan required here, and a transponder is only required near a large metro airport).

And based on the photo of that Captain, someone will be losing a job soon...

Trust me I was neither criticizing or excusing. Just pointing out some interesting gossip I had not seen elsewhere. Looks to me like the guy would have fit in nicely in any 1980s American fighter squadron. Well maybe not the Marines, I am pretty sure they didn't smoke.

But then the 911 hijackers were not particularly devout either while prepping for their "mission".

It just goes to show you, if you are a pilot, anything you do/have done in your life might end up on CNN one day....

Check out the pictures of ValuJet 592 in the everglades. Now imagine that in a very unspecific location in a remote location of the globe. Not saying that is what happened, but it is definitely not the least likely scenario.

No, I'm with you.

This is true.

One thing with Islam, is that some people believe that becoming a martyr forgives all your past transgressions.

Pictures are bad.

Why do you say this, this did not happen in the United States? Who is say that this is not completely fine in Malaysia?

The article stated that Malaysian Airlines, strictly forbids it. With that said- in my opinion, it sure looks like all the pictures in the cockpit were taking on the ground.