f13.net

2. They derived this from engine data automatically transmitted by a monitoring system which only transmits data as long as the engine is running. This just means that the engine was still running 6 1/2 hours in. Which could have been the case if the machine was already on the ground and not travelling at 900 kph.

I'm fairly amazed that this could pass over some of the most militarised airspace without being noticed; the projections of this plane landing somewhere in Kyrgystan or India seem remarkable. Likewise, if this had crashed on land, surely there'd be some fuck-off great fire that someone would have noticed by now?

I know that a lot of statements have been walked back or flat-out retracted as inaccurate, but the last I heard was that Rolls-Royce had agreed that the reports about data being sent from the engines were false. Did I miss an update that contradicted that?

If they wanted hostages for political or financial purposes, why haven't we gotten a video of them and a list of demands?  If they wanted the plane for some Tom Clancy plot, why have they made "Where's the plane?" the number one question for every intelligence service in the world, guaranteeing that every 777 approaching off schedule or flight-plan gets scrutinized?  If they wanted to steal something that was on the plane, did they kill the passengers?  That would be stupid, if you stole a billion dollars, they'll chase you for years, if you kill 240+ people, they'll chase you *forever*.

Yes.

Although they are not stating which system made the contact (probably to not tip off the hijackers) at the press conference the Malaysian PM stated that the last reported satellite communication with MH 370 was Saturday at 8:11 am Malaysian local time. Unable to confirm precise location of the plane when it last made contact with satellites. However, based on new data, the aviation authorities of Malaysia, and the international counterparts, the last communication of MH 370 was in 1 of 2 possible corridors: Northern (border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to Northern Thailand) or Southern (from Indonesia to southern Indian Ocean).

Rolls Royce and Boeing also stated that even though the engine reporting system wasn't active it was still sending 'pings' . That's because they ship every engine with that system and activating it is possible at any time once the airline subscribes to the service.

The always called it satellite communication with MH 370 implying that it was a direct transmission from the flight to some other system and not a satellite image or something like that.

What angers me because no journalist has asked it yet is:

According to experts the plane couldn't have landed anywhere or crashed on land because it would very likely have been spotted already. At the same time though the same plane that basically every country on earth is looking for can be in the air for seven hours after they've lost contact without it being spotted and that's totally likely.

Yeah, right.

What angers me because no journalist has asked it yet is:

According to experts the plane couldn't have landed anywhere or crashed on land because it would very likely have been spotted already. At the same time though the same plane that basically every country on earth is looking for can be in the air for seven hours after they've lost contact without it being spotted and that's totally likely.

Yeah, right.

The fact of the matter is simply that they don't know wherever the fuck that plane is at the moment.

Yeah, I tried working out where you could have flown and landed the aircraft, and I came up with a course that went north over the Himalayas, lots of nothing out there to make an unrecoverable landing, some former Soviet military installations in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan that it could have reached.  But then you're getting into a much larger plot.  Anyway, military radar coverage of the Himalaya region is shit, especially over the Myanmar/Bangladesh portions, and once you were past them you are truly in the ass end of the universe.  Not many people, and communication in and out of the region is pitiful (forget cell coverage, most of these areas don't even have wired phone lines).

--Dave

Yeah but with AF 447 they knew pretty early that it crashed and where it crashed. The mystery was how it crashed and that  was only solved once the flight recorder was found two years later.

I always thought black boxes on planes had beacons that triggered automatically in a crash.

I always thought black boxes on planes had beacons that triggered automatically in a crash.

I always thought black boxes on planes had beacons that triggered automatically in a crash.

What Im kind of amazed at is that you apparently can turn off the transponder.  Seems like the kind of thing you'd want to make impossible to turn off regardless of what a man with a gun to his head would like to do.  I mean, is there any scenario at all where your want a large commercial jet liner flying anywhere without the ability to easily be tracked?

Some news sources are saying that the plane may have ended up in Pakistan.

Wouldn't it be much easier for a national intelligence agency to simply buy or charter a machine than to steal it, though?

I've been thinking of this (http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0097883/)  since day one  :grin:

Anyways, I find cockpit fire originating at the comm stack a more viable situation them some exotic hijacking scenario.  You could fry an egg on some of those electronics (especially the radios) after they've been on a while.  I am a pilot too btw.  My 2 cents.

All this talk of hijacking and there's still no definitive way to rule out a cockpit fire.  I believe two 777's have had fires fairly recently.  Egyptair (in 2011) was a total cockpit loss on the ground after 1 minute (since the fire was using the O2 system as an accelerant).   The Swissair flight in the 90's that ironically killed about the same amount of people, was almost identical in circumstance.  Instrumentation fire.  Dead of night.  IFR conditions.  Pilots struggled to maintain control over the flight plan and eventually hit the ocean at 300mph some time later.

A fire behind the panels or down in the instrument bay could easily get out of control and drop systems one after the other, eventually leaving the pilots with steam gauges and dead reckoning in the middle of the night.  Their best bet would be to use the VOR intersections they apparently used and kill time until daylight.  Likely the AP would be the only viable inertial nav. system left (their gyros are not located in the same place), if at all.  They had a full moon so it's possible they had a horizon as long as they stayed above the cloud layer.

Anyways, I find cockpit fire originating at the comm stack a more viable situation them some exotic hijacking scenario.  You could fry an egg on some of those electronics (especially the radios) after they've been on a while.  I am a pilot too btw.  My 2 cents.

Would a cascade failure like that result in them taking it up to 45,000 feet?  I guess without instruments maybe they didn't know they were in a climb?

That seems to be a key part of all of this from the latest reports. Some speculation that it was done to intentionally depressurize the plane since it is above the operational ceiling. Knock everyone out so they can't stop you from what you are doing (whatever the hell that may be).

It all comes down to the debris.  It's nearly impossible that the plane could crash without leaving a big mess, unless it was soft landed on the ocean and then sank to the bottom.  In that case, you'd expect that at least some people would be floating in the Indian Ocean.  If nothing ever turns up....

As far as the timeline of events is concerned I don't see how a technical issue could be the explanation. If we'd still be talking about a missing plane that was last seen at location X, yes sure. Not when we're talking about a machine whose tracking and transponder systems were disabled deliberately, that deliberately changed course and that deliberately flew in a way to avoid tracking and radar systems.

That would mean that the plane continued on, on the wrong path, for six hours. If that had been the case wouldn't it have been more likely that the autopilot would have continued on its way to Beijing?

The satellite transponder they used to triangulate the projected path and that reported its last ping 6 1/2 hours after the machine vanished doesn't work once it's submerged under water or after a crash. Firstly because it's just a satellite transponder that is not powerful enough and because it draws its power from the engine.

That would mean that the plane continued on, on the wrong path, for six hours. If that had been the case wouldn't it have been more likely that the autopilot would have continued on its way to Beijing?

I could be mistaken but doesn't Autopilot only keep a heading, not adjust for a destination or the original magnetic direction? i.e. If you're headed 122d 15' but then manually adjust course by 22d it will keep you going at the new heading of 100d 15'

The satellite transponder they used to triangulate the projected path and that reported its last ping 6 1/2 hours after the machine vanished doesn't work once it's submerged under water or after a crash. Firstly because it's just a satellite transponder that is not powerful enough and because it draws its power from the engine.

That would mean that the plane continued on, on the wrong path, for six hours. If that had been the case wouldn't it have been more likely that the autopilot would have continued on its way to Beijing?

Flight 447 gives a pretty sobering account of how a cascade of failure from a very minor issue, can cause pilot error that puts an otherwise perfectly OK aircraft into the ground (http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/crashes/what-really-happened-aboard-air-france-447-6611877). If the pilots of MH370 didn't trust their instruments for whatever reason, there are a lot of very small mistakes that can have devastating consequences.

And this is why I hate flying. Panicked idiots on the highway can kill me, but I have at least some sort of ability to control my fate and evade them.  Panicked idiots in the sky, I'm dead.

By the same logic, do you also hate taking trains or the metro?

And this is why I hate flying. Panicked idiots on the highway can kill me, but I have at least some sort of ability to control my fate and evade them.  Panicked idiots in the sky, I'm dead.

More cars on the road than planes. Trains and metro are on rails, so disasters are more of the "guy was drunk" than "airline cuts corners on training. Inexperienced pilot kills 300" or "whoops, took a wrong turn into an obstacle" variety.  :awesome_for_real:

Infowars is going apeshit.  This and the ukraine thing have made the conspirists heads pop.

Fuck it.. it's aliens.   :awesome_for_real:

MISSING MH370: Final words from jet came after systems shutdown

Authorities have said someone on board the plane first disabled one of its communications systems — the Aircraft and Communications Addressing and Reporting System, or ACARS — about 40 minutes after takeoff.
  
The ACARS equipment sends information about the jet’s engines and other data to the airline.  
  
Around 14 minutes later, the transponder that identifies the plane to commercial radar systems was also shut down. The fact that both systems went dark separately offered strong evidence that the plane’s disappearance was deliberate.

MH370 flew as low as 1,500m to avoid detection

In an exclusive story, the government-backed paper said investigators analysing MH370’s flight data revealed that the 200-tonne, fully laden twinjet descended 1,500m or even lower to evade commercial (secondary) radar coverage after it turned back from its flight path en route to Beijing.

Investigators poring over MH370’s flight data had said the plane had flown low and used “terrain masking” as it flew over the Bay of Bengal and headed north towards land, the NST reported.

Officials, who formed the technical team, were looking into the possibility that whoever was piloting the jet at that time had taken advantage of the busy airways over the Bay of Bengal and stuck to a commercial route to avoid raising the suspicion of those manning primary (military) radars, the paper said.

These big planes have plenty of standby power (not including passive components inside the devices like capacitors, standby batts, etc.).  She could be sitting in a tree canopy or floating on the indian ocean and still show up to the datacenters.

Everyone seems to think the plane is highjacked in central Asia somewhere, but there still are a few experts telling everyone to just 'hold on a minute here' and keep the options open.  1st cause is always pilot error, then breakdown, and then terrorism/hijacking.  The 1st two hypothesis dont just go away because there's strong evidence of the latter. 

The most probably scenario is still that we'll find the plane somewhere, crashed, and that the flight data recorder will show us a scenario that explains everything and that it was simply a chain of events we couldn't even imagine would happen and that we couldn't have anticipated. I don't fault the investigators for looking at every possible angle though, especially since the whole things seems to be suspicious. (The search for a possibly crashed plane is still going on after all even after they've searched the captain's house) I just fault the 'experts' who by and large are quick to dismiss anything out of the ordinary as 'this couldn't have happened, ever'.

The voice recorder is a minimum of 30 minutes (NTSB recommendation is 2 hours), the flight data recorder records 17-25 hours of flight data.

Starting with a set of facts that have been made available publically and verified over the past few days, I first plotted MH370’s course onto an aviation IFR map which shows the airways and waypoints used to navigate the skies.  I plotted the point where it stopped transmitting ADS-B information at 1721UTC.  I then plotted the Malaysian military radar track from that point towards “VAMPI”, “GIVAL”, and then onward toward “IGREX” on P628 ending with where the plane should be at 1815UTC when military radar lost contact.

Nothing profound there… but then I looked to see what other planes were in the air at 1815UTC and I looked to see exactly where they were positioned in the sky and where they were flying.   The picture started to develop when I discovered that another Boeing 777 was en-route from Singapore over the Andaman Sea.


I investigated further and plotted the exact coordinates of Singapore Airlines flight number 68’s location at 1815UTC onto the aviation map.  I quickly realized that SIA68 was in the immediate vicinity as the missing MH370 flight at precisely the same time.  Moreover, SIA68 was en-route on a heading towards the same IGREX waypoint on airway P628 that the Malaysian military radar had shown MH370 headed towards at precisely the same time.

[...]

So by now, you may have caught on or you may be scratching your head and wondering if I’ve gone insane!  How does SIA68 have anything to do with MH370 disappearing?   Remember the one challenge that is currently making everyone doubt that MH370 actually flew to Turkmenistan, Iran, China, or Kyrgyzstan?  That challenge is the thought that MH370 couldn’t make it through several key airspaces such as India or Afghanistan without being detected by the military. 
It is my belief that MH370 likely flew in the shadow of SIA68 through India and Afghanistan airspace.  As MH370 was flying “dark” without transponder / ADS-B output, SIA68 would have had no knowledge that MH370 was anywhere around and as it entered Indian airspace, it would have shown up as one single blip on the radar with only the transponder information of SIA68 lighting up ATC and military radar screens.

I may be wonky on my physics there but wouldn't the fact that a second plane was basically slipstreaming increase the fuel consumption of the plane travelling in front?

I may be wonky on my physics there but wouldn't the fact that a second plane was basically slipstreaming increase the fuel consumption of the plane travelling in front?

As far as I could find out the only way to get any data off the plane is the ACARS. Every connected system transfers data to the ACARS and the ACARS routes it to the destination via VHF or Inmarsat or other communication systems (depending on what is available on a plane and if it has a connection). Makes sense really, since the transmission power involved to get a message to its destination via VHF or L-Band Satellite is too high for integrated and battery powered transceivers. Also VHF requires an antenna that is between 25 cm and 2,5m long at lambda/4 depending on the band used (VHF is 30 to 300 MHz) and L-Band Transmitters require a 40 cm dish. It's unlikely that a data recording subsystem could transmit anything on its own without going through the plane's transmission system. So in order for the Satellite network to be able to ping the plane and get a reply the whole transmitter system has to still be functional and it has to be powered. Either by backup power or the internal generator.

It also can't transmit while the transmitter (antenna system) is submerged in water. Radio signals are easily isolated by water (that's why the flight data recorder uses sonar or acoustical pings) usually 10 cm to 30 cm of water are enough to completely block any transmissions.

In order for your scenario to work the plane would need to be mostly operational. That's why so many experts still think the plane was in the air for the whole time (at least until fuel ran out) because it would be highly unlikely for those systems to still be active once the plane had crashed and it also seemed unlikely that the plane could have landed anywhere without it being noticed.

So the plane was either still in the air when the last contact was made which probably means that it ran out of fuel and crashed or it was on the ground but mostly intact so that the plane's transmitter was still operational.


Usually the most likely explanation is also what really happened. I don't even take issue with that reasoning. It's just that the explanations by experts involved as to why anything else couldn't have happened seems weak. Firstly because the persons involved knew pretty early on that both the transponder and the ACARS have been deliberately shut off before the last 'AOK' transmission was made. This points to other explanations than pilot error or defect as to why the machine is missing. Secondly because the explanations amount to 'the plane couldn't have landed because we would have found it by now if it did' and 'it would require expert knowledge to pull something like this off which the perpetrators likely didn't have'.

Since 9/11 one should be very careful with that line of reasoning because it amounts to nothing but a chauvinistic belief that those brown people aren't smart or educated enough to pull something like this off and a professional pilot would never do this for any reason at all.

The most probably scenario is still that we'll find the plane somewhere, crashed, and that the flight data recorder will show us a scenario that explains everything and that it was simply a chain of events we couldn't even imagine would happen and that we couldn't have anticipated. I don't fault the investigators for looking at every possible angle though, especially since the whole things seems to be suspicious. (The search for a possibly crashed plane is still going on after all even after they've searched the captain's house) I just fault the 'experts' who by and large are quick to dismiss anything out of the ordinary as 'this couldn't have happened, ever'.

MH370  A different point of view. Pulau Langkawi 13,000 runway.

A lot of speculation about MH370. Terrorism, hijack, meteors. I cannot believe the analysis on CNN - almost disturbing. I tend to look for a more simple explanation of this event.
 
Loaded 777 departs midnight from Kuala to Beijing. Hot night. Heavy aircraft.  About an hour out across the gulf towards Vietnam the plane goes dark meaning the transponder goes off and secondary radar tracking goes off.
 
Two days later we hear of reports that Malaysian military radar (which is a primary radar meaning the plane is being tracked by reflection rather than by transponder interrogation response) has tracked the plane on a southwesterly course back across the Malay Peninsula into the straits of Malacca.
 
When I heard this I immediately brought up Google Earth and I searched for airports in proximity to the track towards southwest.
 
The left turn is the key here. This was a very experienced senior Captain with 18,000 hours. Maybe some of the younger pilots interviewed on CNN didn't pick up on this left turn. We old pilots were always drilled to always know the closest airport of safe harbor while in cruise. Airports behind us, airports abeam us and airports ahead of us. Always in our head. Always. Because if something happens you don't want to be thinking what are you going to do - you already know what you are going to do. Instinctively when I saw that left turn with a direct heading I knew he was heading for an airport. Actually he was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi a 13,000 foot strip with an approach over water at night with no obstacles. He did not turn back to Kuala  Lampur because he knew he had 8,000 foot ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier towards Langkawi and also a shorter distance.
 
Take a look on Google Earth at this airport. This pilot did all the right things. He was confronted by some major event onboard that made him make that immediate turn back to the closest safe airport.
For me the loss of transponders and communications makes perfect sense if a fire. There was most likely a fire or electrical fire. In the case of fire the first response if to pull all the main busses and restore circuits one by one until you have isolated the bad one.

If they pulled the busses the plane indeed would go silent. It was probably a serious event and they simply were occupied with controlling the plane and trying to fight the fire. Aviate, Navigate and lastly communicate. There are two types of fires. Electrical might not be as fast and furious and there might or might not be incapacitating smoke. However there is the possibility given the timeline that perhaps there was an overheat on one of the front landing gear tires and it blew on takeoff and started slowly burning. Yes this happens with underinflated tires. Remember heavy plane, hot night, sea level, long run takeoff. There was a well known accident in Nigeria of a DC8 that had a landing gear fire on takeoff. A tire fire once going would produce horrific incapacitating smoke. Yes, pilots have access to oxygen masks but this is a no no with fire. Most have access to a smoke hood with a filter but this will only last for a few minutes depending on the smoke level. (I used to carry one of my own in a flight bag and I still carry one in my briefcase today when I fly).
 
What I think happened is that they were overcome by smoke and the plane just continued on  the heading probably on George (autopilot) until either fuel exhaustion or fire destroyed the control surfaces and it crashed. I said four days ago you will find it along that route - looking elsewhere was pointless. 
 
This pilot, as I say, was a hero struggling with an impossible situation trying to get that plane to Langkawi. No doubt in my mind. That's the reason for the turn and direct route. A hijack would not have made that deliberate left turn with a direct heading for Langkawi. It would probably have weaved around a bit until the hijackers decided on where they were taking it.
 
Surprisingly none of the reporters , officials, other pilots interviewed have looked at this from the pilot's viewpoint. If something went wrong where would he go? Thanks to Google earth I spotted Langkawi in about 30 seconds, zoomed in and saw how long the runway was and I just instinctively knew this pilot knew this airport. He had probably flown there many times. I guess we will eventually find out when you help me spread this theory on the net and some reporters finally take a look on Google earth and put 2 and 2 together. Also a look at the age and number of cycles on those nose tires might give us a good clue too.   
 
Fire in an aircraft demands one thing - you get the machine on the ground as soon as possible. There are two well remembered experiences in my memory. The AirCanada DC9 which landed I believe in Columbus Ohio in the eighties. That pilot delayed descent and bypassed several airports.   He didn't instinctively know the closest airports. He got it on the ground eventually but lost 30 odd souls.   In the 1998 crash of Swissair DC-10 off Nova Scotia was another example of heroic pilots. They were 15 minutes out of Halifax but the fire simply  overcame them and they had to ditch in the ocean. Just ran out of time. That fire incidentally started when the aircraft was about an hour out of Kennedy. Guess what the transponders and communications were shut off as they pulled the busses.
 
Get on Google Earth and type in Pulau Langkawi  and then look at it in relation to the radar track heading. 2+2=4  That for me is the  simple explanation why it turned and headed  in that direction.

Smart pilot. Just didn't have the time.

Thought this was an interesting point of view: https://plus.google.com/106271056358366282907/posts/GoeVjHJaGBz

An improbable chain of events stemming from an accident is still far more likely than an improbably chain of events stemming from some expertly conducted human actions than have no discernible value to anyone as yet.

"The unknown aircraft's signal was sending out intermittently, on and off, and on and off," the spokesman said. The Thai military lost the unknown aircraft's signal because of the limits of its military radar, he said.

I'm not clear what they mean by 'unknown aircraft's signal was sending out intermittently'.

They can't mean the transponder signal because then it would not be an 'unknown aircraft'. The transponder - even if it was only intermittently active - would have shown that it was MH 370 as well as direction height and airspeed. So they must mean radar contact.

redux:
ACARS only 'pings' like once every 30mins and it's only a few bits for a handshake.  Not a lot of power needed.  On the contrary, I'd assume the sat-comm would ping more often.  It's still confusing which piece of equipment they were using to triangulate.

There are several ways you can triangulate a position via a radio signal, all of them are very susceptible to interference and/or resolution of time measured. Especially when the distances get large. That's because radio signals travel at speeds that are near c.

- time of flight: measurement of the time it took a signal to reach different receivers.
- angle: measure the angle at which different receivers received a signal
- received signal strength; if you know the transmit power of the transmitter and the received signal strength at the receiver you can estimate the distance
- signal phase: measure the phase difference of the signal you sent out and the reply
- round trip time of flight

All of those triangulation methods measure values that are susceptible to interference or measurement errors and can give you results that can be off by miles if the data is distorted.

If your signal travels at c you'll be off by 1 meter if your time measurement is only off by 3 nanoseconds.

I've looked around but I couldn't find any detailed info on how they calculated the positions.

What I could find out is that they probably used multilateration to get to the line they've released. This means that they'd need to calculate the time difference of arrival fpr three receivers or antennas/antenna segments.

You basically measure the time difference between the time the signal hits the first antenna/receiver and the time it hits the second antenna/receiver. If you know the exact location of both antennas/receivers you can estimate the location of the sender.

One TDoA measurement (two receivers) will only allow you to place the transmitter on a hyperboloid though, you'd need a second TDoA measurement (a third receiver) to get to a geodesic (the intersection of those two hyperboloids) and three TDoA measurements (four receivers) to pinpoint an exact location in 3D space.

As it seems they only received the ping on one geostationary satellite though (marked on the map, right over the maledives) which means that the ping would have needed to hit three different antenna segments or spot beams on the same satellite, they'd need to know the exact distance of those antenna segments from each other and they'd need to be able to measure the time difference of arrival for each of those segments with a certain precision. It's not that hard because you can do a wave count and measure phase shift between those signals, which is easier than if you needed to precisely measure times with nanosecond resolution but still.

Another problem I have with the picture is that it doesn't show a geodesic line. If they had two distinct TDoA measurements the result would be basically a straight line that connects the two points where both hyperboloids intersect. On a spheroid a straight line is always a geodesic line (shortest line following the curvature). The image looks as if it is the line that is created when one hyperboloid intersects with the surface, though. Which implies only a single TDoA measurement. That would mean that, at least theoretically, the plane could be anywhere on the 35° circle the red line is on. They've probably only marked the area the plane could realistically have travelled given its remaining fuel supply.

I still would have liked for them to disclose how they came up with that line. I hope that at least the nations that take part in the SAR operation have the data and can verify the accuracy. I also wonder why they didn't calculate similar intersections for the other data pings they must have received. Maybe they could have shown the direction the plane was travelling.

Since "serious" news outlets are considering theories up to and including the literal hand of God (http://www.mediaite.com/tv/don-lemon-cnn-guest-wonder-whether-something-supernatural-happened-to-malaysian-plane/), I think we're all comparatively reasonable here.

--Dave

 :facepalm: :argh: :argh: :argh: :mob:

It was explained previously in an article about the ACARS thing and satellite keep-alives, that previous pings aren't stored, they are overwritten with the latest data. Actual data is presumably stored wherever the satellite forwards it to but the handshake and keep-alive stuff is rewritten every time a new ping is received..

I note many posts referring to earlier pings and asking the question why no information has been released concerning anything other than the “last ping.” Maybe I can shed some light on this.

Summary
1) It is most unlikely that data relating to anything other than the most recent ping would be retained onboard the satellite, and
2) Each ping must necessarily contain an unique identifier.

Communication satellites generally use time division multiple access (TDMA) to enable them to service many “clients” simultaneously. This works as follows: the satellite allocates time slots to each client for them to uplink their data, so that in normal operation client A transmits a brief burst of data then Client B, client C and so on. The whole sequence repeats many times per second in so-called frames. For this to work, the sat’ needs to keep a record of all its potential clients and the time slot(s) allocated to each one. This is the TDMA scheduling table and it is maintained by the satellite’s on-board computer.

Periodically, the satellite broadcasts a channel access frame, inviting any new client wanting to use the satellite’s services to identify itself and the services it wants to access. The timing of the replies received during the channel access frame enables the satellite to work out the most suitable time slot(s) to allocate to that client. Note that in doing so, the satellite has implicitly calculated the round-trip time for radio waves to that client.

Once a client (aircraft, sat-phone, etc.) has established channel access it periodically pings the satellite to check its time slot allocations. (Hello this is client XYZ. My time slot is 36ms after the frame. Is that still OK?) If the client has moved significantly, the satellite may notice the timings have changed and update its TDMA tables with a new time slot for that client. Note that all of this TDMA stuff is merely to maintain access to the satellite if needed and has nothing to do with actual data transfer, which is negotiated separately as and when needed.

The operative word is update in that paragraph. When the tables are updated, previous values are overwritten and lost. There would be no reason to log or down-link all the technical details of the TDMA protocol as that information has no commercial value to the satellite operator.

When a client falls silent, its entry will remain in the TDMA tables until expunged to make room for a new client. It would appear that Inmarsat were able to interrogate their bird before this happened and down-link the data for MH370. Unless the satellite was logging useless, out-of-date information, this record would contain only the most recent ping data.

"New and credible information has come to light in relation to the search ... in the south Indian Ocean," Mr Abbott told Parliament during Question Time.

"The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) has received information based on satellite imagery of objects possibly related to the search."

I like it :)

One question

From looking at your map I guess you think the flight path from Malaysian primary radar returns (IGARI-VAMPI-GIVAL-IGREX) is wrong and sort of a red-herring?

Officials have revealed a new timeline suggesting the final voice transmission from the cockpit of the missing Malaysian plane may have occurred before any of its communications systems were disabled, adding more uncertainty about who aboard might have been to blame.
Malaysian Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said an initial investigation indicated that the last words heard from the plane by ground controllers - "All right, good night" - were spoken by the co-pilot, Fariq Abdul Hamid. Had it been a voice other than that of Fariq or the pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, it would have clearest indication yet of something amiss in the cockpit before the flight went off-course.
Malaysian officials said earlier that those words came after one of the jetliner's data communications systems - the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System - had been switched off, suggesting the voice from the cockpit may have been trying to deceive ground controllers.
However, Amhad said that while the last data transmission from ACARS - which gives plane performance and maintenance information - came before that, it was still unclear at what point the system was switched off, making any implications of the timing murkier.

Taking up too much of my time lately.

(If it's all the same to the Ancient Ones, I'd rather be eaten last)

It's quite clear that it's Obama trying to distract from Benghazi.

Or something.

Heh (http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/03/21/even-the-missing-malaysian-airliner-reminds-fox/198562).

It's basically the worst place to look for a crashed aircraft. It's about 2,600 miles from australia. Literally in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Far off from any land and any shipping lane.

The pacific ocean is also almost 4.5 kilometers deep there. About the same depth actually as the ocean where the AF flight sunk and it took them two years to find and salvage the flight data recorder of that flight.

The pacific ocean is also almost 4.5 kilometers deep there. About the same depth actually as the ocean where the AF flight sunk and it took them two years to find and salvage the flight data recorder of that flight.

We can only hope that Mythos Survival Horror replaces Zombie Survival Horror as the dominant game meme.

Has the US media gotten bored and stopped reporting on it?

Huh?  There was a missing plane?

We vaguely remember something about that now that you mention it...

Whatever it was I suppose it was not a catastrophic event (at first). When the co-pilot signed off everything still seemed to be normal.  All of the 'somebody turned off the transponder and ACARS deliberately' talk was likely a relatively slow moving issue. At first systems dropped out the crew likely didn't even notice and by the time they did notice it was probably too late.
The best safety measure for such kinds of event is simply to make damn sure that something like that must not and cannot happen.

I'm intimately familiar with automotive ECUs (electronic control units) I know all of the tools, I've helped develop and bring to market quite a few. I know the tech inside and out.

That's setting aside the question of air, odds are everybody was unconscious or dead long before the plane went into the water.  Possibly even before the plane reached the end of the FMS course, which appears to have been programmed by the pilot as a matter of safety procedure.

--Dave

How does the air you normally breathe work in an airplane at 35k feet?  Is it a special system that pressurizes the air that once it goes out no more air comes into the cabin?

Yeah, my ex-wife asked me if there were people inside for 6 hours, why didn't they use the satellite comms the engines were hooked up to, to call for help.  Basically, because they would have to have exhaustive knowledge of both satellite communications systems, *and* exactly how it was installed in the 777.  There probably isn't anyone in the world who could have done it in less than a week and access to all of the diagrams, and only a few dozen that could have done even that.  Doing it on an operating aircraft before the fuel runs out?  Forget it, MacGuyver would take one look at it and say "We're fucked".  Similar problems with trying to fly the aircraft if the cockpit was gutted by fire, it's not like there's a place you can hook up a joystick.

--Dave

If you've got a hole like that in in the aircraft, and can't get below about 20,000, nobody is going to be conscious for long.

--Dave

If you've got a hole like that in in the aircraft, and can't get below about 20,000, nobody is going to be conscious for long.

How does the air you normally breathe work in an airplane at 35k feet?  Is it a special system that pressurizes the air that once it goes out no more air comes into the cabin?

Trying to cover up some potentially embarrassing security issue is pretty much the only explanation I can think of for the otherwise baffling information releases from the Malaysian authorities.

Unrelated comment:  so what you're saying is stealth technology isn't really necessary considering everyone else's level of radar coverage.

Uhhh no.  Europeans who have the whole of Europe to fly (and inherently the world) do not come to the US for "open space."

or they shot it down or something strange.

Supposedly Chinese vessel picks up 'pulse signal' from South Indian Ocean  (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10746529/Malaysia-Airlines-MH370-black-box-ping-detected-reports.html?fb)

For reasons that would take this thread straight to Politics, China desperately wants a "Naval Victory" such as being the ones that find the first definitive evidence of MH370.  I'm not saying they'd make stuff up, but they're pre-disposed to interpret ambiguous evidence favorably and inexperienced at this kind of operation.

--Dave

Malayasian authorities are now saying we may never know what happened.

Signal vanished. If it came from the flight data recorder it probably ran out of energy.

Everything we told you was bullshit. MH370 is not in the Indian Ocean.

(http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BoxwfhtCUAAbNLP.png)

(read more) (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-29/mh370-search-zone-not-resting-place-of-plane/5487052)

Did you read the article?

Fragments of a wing washed up in the French island of Reunion could be wreckage from Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, says aviation expert