[tharian]

The case of the missing Malaysian airliner.

I was reading that the Air France flight that went missing was traced after 2 full years!

In the age of technology and excellent communications, it is a surprise that a long haul airliner went missing just like that and cannot be traced.

Most guesses go towards the flight disintegrating in mid-air which was the reason complete communication and co-ordinates were lost in few seconds.

Chances of survival of any passenger is as good as nil , but knowing what happened and the reason for no debris being sighted in 3 days will be interesting.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26510622

[bhardwhu]

What intrigues me is this news:

http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/219...rlines-flight/

Could it be true that plane has been hijacked?

Though other news and the Air France discovery points to a possible deadly disaster.

[Cyrus_the_virus]

For those of you who haven't already seen this, please watch. The first time I heard of the Malaysian Airlines, this episode flashed immediately to my mind!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHduB-knlt0

[shivshanker]

This looks like a huge jig saw puzzle for which there are no answers. As I take MH out of Bombay almost every month, been following this closely.

Biggest surprise is that ACARS is not implemented by MH, which means that the RAMP team has to solely rely on the feedback of the flight crew for maintenance after the flight lands. This is 1970's procedures.

further more, the data given out by MH is totally inconsistent with regards to the missing plane.

a) First they said they lost contact at 2.41am, it so appears that the plane went off from the KL Tower at 1.40am, which also coincides with the Flight Radar data. The transponder was not working. The plane was supposed to be flying without any ATC contact till 2.41am.

b) At 2.41am the plane was supposed to report to SGN tower, but failed to appear on their screens.

c) KL Tower started the search only after 2.41am.

d) There seems to be no correlation between the Civil Aviation and the Military Radars on the timing issue. The Military issues a statement that their Radar noticed the plane started to turn back just before the Crash.

In this age of technology wherein all these things are supposed to be recorded for easy playback, even after three days there seems to be concrete evidence on what did this Radar really see.

On one hand my commonsense tells me that since this is a sensitive matter, the authorities might not want to divulge information, but at the same time, it is the confidence with which they address the Press Conference.

These are just my thoughts, my prayers go out to the families of the passengers and the Crew of MH370.

[aneezan]

Just got to know that two my colleagues from Malaysia were on the ill-fated flight. Really sad. My company is with-holding further information on them for privacy sake.
They were on their way to China for a client meeting.
My heart goes to all on the flight.

[shivshanker]

Originally Posted by aneezan

Just got to know that two my colleagues from Malaysia were on the ill-fated flight. Really sad. My company is with-holding further information on them for privacy sake.
They were on their way to China for a client meeting.
My heart goes to all on the flight.

yes, read it on W3. heartfelt condolences to the families.

[phamilyman]

Originally Posted by shivshanker

This looks like a huge jig saw puzzle for which there are no answers. As I take MH out of Bombay almost every month, been following this closely.

I fly MH every week - flying tonight as well. Relax.

Lightning doesn't strike the same place twice

Statistics is on our side!

[shivshanker]

Originally Posted by phamilyman

I fly MH every week - flying tonight as well. Relax.

Lightning doesn't strike the same place twice

Statistics is on our side!

Wow, every week must be tiring. I travel for personal reasons, wonder what would be your professional/personal reasons that you need to fly MAA/KUL every week.

Anyways have a safe flight.

Ps. Thanks for the tip on the lightning front

Cheers!

[Superleggera]

Some where I read that the flight is 12 years old. Should we be using such flights for traveling? I am not an expert, but flight more than 10 years should be used only for cargo.

[sagarpadaki]

Originally Posted by Superleggera

Some where I read that the flight is 12 years old. Should we be using such flights for traveling? I am not an expert, but flight more than 10 years should be used only for cargo.

There is no such restrictions. I have seen planes 20 years old used for passengers, especially 747. As long as they are maintained well its not an issue. But Airlines usually won't stretch them for so long because the in interior becomes worn out and people won't prefer flying in such oldish looking planes

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Superleggera

Some where I read that the flight is 12 years old. Should we be using such flights for traveling? I am not an expert, but flight more than 10 years should be used only for cargo.

Well maintained its not an issue at all.
Have a look at this site and look up your favourite airline and see what the age of their planes are:

http://www.airsafe.com/events/airlines/fleetage.htm

Originally Posted by tharian

The case of the missing Malaysian airliner.

I was reading that the Air France flight that went missing was traced after 2 full years!

]

That is not entirely correct. It took about five days in case of the AF flight to find the approx place it had gone down, ie locating floating debris. So after five days they knew where the plane crashed. It took them two years to actually locate the blax boxes on the bottom of the ocean and retrieve them.

It was a complicated find and retrieve mission due to to the depth.

Jeroen

[Warwithwheels]

This headline needs no further explanation. The MH370 incident has shook the whole world and the Aviation industry in particular. It has been 4 days since the flight has gone missing and there is no breakthrough yet despite the world super powers stepping in.



Flight MH370, operated on the B777-200 aircraft, departed Kuala Lumpur at 12.41am on 8 March 2014. MH370 was expected to land in Beijing at 6.30am the same day. The flight was carrying a total number of 227 passengers (including 2 infants), 12 crew members. There were 5 Indian Passengers on board.

Weather conditions on this flight are said to have been good and the pilot, 53, who had more than 18,000 flying hours behind him, had been employed by the airline since 1981. Malaysia Airlines has a good safety record and the jet, a Boeing 777-200ER, is said to be one of the safest because of its modern technology.


According to the Malaysian Airlines Press Release:

The B777-200 aircraft that operated MH370 underwent maintenance on 23 February 2014, 10 days before this particular flight on 8 March 2014. The next check is due on 19 June 2014. The maintenance was conducted at the KLIA hangar and there were no issues on the health of the aircraft.

The aircraft was delivered to Malaysia Airlines in 2002 and have since recorded 53,465.21 hours with a total of 7525 cycles. All Malaysia Airlines aircraft are equipped with continuous data monitoring system called the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) which transmits data automatically. Nevertheless, there were no distress calls and no information was relayed.

Let's extend our thoughts and prayers to the affected passengers crew and their family members.

Source: BBC News & Malaysian Airlines

[anujmishra]

This is heartening situation and not a single object being found till now from the plane itself. This incident remembers the KAL 007 incident in 1983, in which Russian Jet shot down a Boeing 747 of Korean Air near USSR which was flying from Anchorage to Gimpo airport of Seoul.

The pilot of that jet Gennadi Osipovich still regarded in their country for shooting down civilian plane which wandered into Russian Airspace. There is website for this incident as well http://www.rescue007.org/ & interview of pilot after many years by New-York Times here http://www.aewa.org/Library/kal007.txt.

I may not suspecting this, but such incident happened many times when civilian jets shot down by missiles while in Air and in such case finding debris is very difficult.

[shivshanker]

Originally Posted by anujmishra

This is heartening situation and not a single object being found till now from the plane itself. This incident remembers the KAL 007 incident in 1983, in which Russian Jet shot down a Boeing 747 of Korean Air near USSR which was flying from Anchorage to Gimpo airport of Seoul.

The pilot of that jet Gennadi Osipovich still regarded in their country for shooting down civilian plane which wandered into Russian Airspace. There is website for this incident as well http://www.rescue007.org/ & interview of pilot after many years by New-York Times here http://www.aewa.org/Library/kal007.txt.

I may not suspecting this, but such incident happened many times when civilian jets shot down by missiles while in Air and in such case finding debris is very difficult.

The korean air disaster was at the height of the cold war, it was just a case of wrong person at the wrong place. In the Korean case first the Tail was shot and the plane disabled, the pilot fought to control the a/c and eventually it crashed. Survivors Unknown.

Malaysian case cannot be compared in the remotest way possible as the flight was in its own territorial waters/airspace.

All the agencies involved acknowledge the fact that when the craft disappeared it was supposed to be over Malaysian Territorial waters, for the craft to stray into Russian or Chinese air space it will take more flying time. More so, it has to cross friendly nations such as Cambodia and or Vietnam to enter the Chinese air space. They would have for sure raised an Alarm for an intruder.

In any eventuality, there is absolutely no explanation for the fact that both the Primary and secondary Radars could not detect the plane.

The most intriguing fact is that the transponder went away when the flight was still in Malaysian air space

[anujmishra]

Originally Posted by shivshanker

The korean air disaster was at the height of the cold war, it was just a case of wrong person at the wrong place. In the Korean case first the Tail was shot and the plane disabled, the pilot fought to control the a/c and eventually it crashed. Survivors Unknown.
...

There were many incidents in which some stray missile during training exercise (intentional or unintentional) hit the civilian aircraft. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...down_incidents

However, at this point of time this is all speculation for this missing jet. Hope some clue people should get asap to find out exact reason of crash.