Report: Missing Airplane Flew On For Hours

[Hissyspit]

Source: Associated Press

REPORT: MISSING AIRPLANE FLEW ON FOR HOURS

Mar. 13, 2014 1:20 AM EDT

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — The Wall Street Journal is reporting that U.S. investigators suspect a missing Malaysian jetliner flew on for four hours once it lost contact with air traffic controllers.

The suspicion is based on data from the plane's engines that are automatically downloaded and transmitted to the ground as part of routine maintenance programs.

The report raises questions as to why the Boeing 777 was flying like that, and if anyone was in control during that time.

The plane's last known confirmed position was roughly halfway between Malaysia and Vietnam.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/report-missing-airplane-flew-hours

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UPDATE: @BreakingNews: Malaysia's transport minister says media reports suggesting lost Malaysia Airlines aircraft kept flying are inaccurate - live video

[Agschmid]

1. Whatever happened it sure is going to be interesting when we find it all out.

[Cha]

8. Agree.

[philosslayer]

62. IF we find it all out

What if the plane is never located? Seems like a possibility at this point.

[SoapBox]

2. As it's been repeatedly said...

weirder and weirder.

[pscot]

3. The Guardian has it too

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/13/malaysia-airlines-flight-how-long-plane-kept-flying

[Leroy Jenkins.]

4. Disinfo.

Nore And More Garbage Comes Out Every Day,It Seems To Me They Are Trying To Hide Something.Either That Or No One Knows What Happened And They Don't Want To Admit It....

[Cali_Democrat]

5. LOL...you that guy from Warcraft?

[Leroy Jenkins.]

6. Leeeeeroy Jenkins!!!

I keep the Same Name On All Fourms I Post On So People Know Who I Am.

[TexasProgresive]

15. How about-nobody knows what happened, that's the truth

and the news outlets and governments have to say something. They should just say we don't know what happened and are using every resource available to discover the truth. But that won't sell soap.

Here's one fact- the plane was in the middle of no where and it disappeared.

[RobinA]

45. I'm Starting to Wonder

if there is a missing plane. I mean, come ON.

[Recursion]

7. Why can the transponders be turned off to begin with?

What's the upside there?

[SeattleVet]

9. Almost all electronics onboard can be turned off, or have the breaker popped

for maintenance, troubleshooting, and a host of other reasons. It is fairly common practice to be asked to turn off the transponder when changing codes, so that you don't accidentally squawk 7700, 7600, 7500, which are assigned for specific emergencies (hijacking, radio failure, or other, non-specified emergency).

[jtuck004]

10. So it was about an hour.5 into the flight, with a destination then 4.5 hours, roughly. aircraft

all trimmed out to fly at 35,000, then sudden decompression. (Which could be a mechanical malfunction, cargo, or something nefarious). Takes out the pilots O2, maybe a fire fed by their O2. They could be incapacitated in 10- 20 or so seconds, dead soon after.

If a fire started, or the hull ripped, could\would they have thrown it on autopilot so they could maybe try to take care of that?

Would they have taken on only about enough fuel (plus some safety) to get to their destination? They wouldn't want to carry much extra around all the time, back and forth.

There are separate O2 bottles all up and down the plane for the passengers, (yes?) so some of them might have lived, but perhaps with no electricity, it could have just flown another 4 hours or so (as they are suggesting on new reports of engine info) until it fell out of the sky empty?

That just seems a little more likely than the theory I am reading now which says they may all have been flown somewhere so someone could steal the plane.

Thoughts?

[another_liberal]

12. If the thing flew on by autopilot for about four hours . . .

Until its fuel ran out, it would most likely have come down in some of the most remote, thinly populated and heavy jungle covered areas on Earth (the mountains of northern Thailand and Laos, and the southeastern border regions of China). We may have a very long wait to know what happened.

[jtuck004]

13. Or somewhere in the ocean.

Hundreds of miles in any direction.

I'm not a pilot, but I would think if you set it for level flight, as the earth curves your atmosphere gets even thinner, and at some point the lift of the engines fails and it spirals down?

Autopilot would require electricity, but if engines were running, and it had power, then what happened to the beacon, and radios?

This would then be a search area thousands and thousands of square miles. And I think, within that area, are probably still military planes and others that crashed that have never been found.

So yeah, what you said. Long wait.

[caraher]

14. level flight does not mean straight line flight

As the Earth curves, so does the plane's path, as level flight means constant altitude. So the air would not progressively thin and neither the thrust of the engines nor the lift provided by the wings would calamitously change.

Eventually fuel would run out, of course... and at aircraft speeds the search area gets awfully large awfully fast, as you note.

[jtuck004]

44. The plane curves because of the pilot or autopilot. In this case there may be neither,

only pulled on by gravity and friction and...

There is no mechanism for the plane to be adjusted without external input of some kind,

[caraher]

59. Gravity is exactly what pulls it

Since airplanes don't fly in the airless gravity-free vacuum of the introductory physics text, true straight-line flight basically never happens for any extended period of time. Your previous post suggested otherwise. Level flight "straight ahead" is going to describe a great circle on the globe at constant altitude, rather than the floating into overly-rarefied air I thought your earlier post was positing.

Yes, thrust and drag, lift and weight - those forces determine the trajectory. In general the result is rarely a "true" straight line.

[jtuck004]

60. I wasn't clear. What I meant was that if a pilot sets it to fly somewhere, in the

absence of pressure on ailerons, flaps, etc, or thrust, something, it's just gonna keep doing what it's doing.

I didn't mean to shortchange the effect of gravity, but I am assuming the throttle (along with other controls) is set to overcome that, at least for the moment, so gravity, while in the picture, would wear on the flight path over time, but not enough to curve it to the ground before fuel runs out, I think.

There is also the effect of wind, up and downdrafts, though I don't know if that's much of a thing at that altitude?

I am just thinking that if they are flying along and everyone dies that plane is just gonna keep doin' what it was told to do if there are no other controls affecting it. So if it is set to fly to a point out there somewhere, barring some other force, it goes there till it can't.

I will work on my writing...

[kristopher]

20. The codes aren't permanently assigned.

And the avionics are often on while on the ground for maint.

[Recursion]

42. They don't recognize modes of operation?

eg, "if the plane is airborne, the transponder squawks if disengaged"? IIRC this happened on 9/11 too; the hijackers turned off the transponders so that control was only able to track them as a primary.

[EX500rider]

52. They need off positions on all electronics in case of shorts. n/t

[ColesCountyDem]

11. Pro golfer Payne Stewart's plane flew for hours before it crashed.

I'll admit that this case has far more questions than answers, but sudden, catastrophic decompression has been Suspicion #1 in my mind since the day the aircraft went missing. Had the the aircraft suffered a sudden, catastrophic decompression at 35,000 feet, the pilots would have had between 5 and 8 seconds to respond before losing consciousness.

The number of probable or likely explanations for what happened are few and, quite honestly, most likely not sinister.

[kristopher]

21. The autopilot on this plane will take it down to 10K ft in that event. nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

22. 15 to 30 seconds, according to the FAA:

www.faa.gov/pilots/training/airman_education/media/AC%2061-107A.pdf

which makes quite a difference - if they're able to move, that's enough time to get oxygen masks.

[Pholus]

26. The 777 HAD that problem early on too....

but they think they solved it...

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/05/us/boeing-discovers-cause-of-sudden-losses-of-pressure-by-777-s.html

[rickford66]

53. Stewart was in a Lear 35 - cruise alt 41,000

Less time to respond to sudden decompression at that altitude I guess. The flight crews I worked with on simulators (727's & 747's) with three man crews, told us at least one crew member kept his O2 mask ready in case of sudden decompression, but the flight crew in question seems to have not followed all safety and security guidelines in the past.

[ColesCountyDem]

57. I was thinking they were at FL 360 or 365, but we essentially agree.

Stewart's plane suffered catastrophic decompression at some point as it was ascending to FL 390 from FL 230, but before reaching it. I was using Stewart's flight for purposes of illustration, primarily because both it and the Malaysian 777 had 2 man crews and were at similar altitudes ( again, if I recall correctly, after 14 or 15 years ).

So many folks here are understandably mystified and posting a lot of 'the FAA says' or 'Mr. X, on CNN says' type stuff in an attempt to make sense of this mystery, and I get that and in no way mean to sound critical or condescending toward them. What I think is happening, however, is that they hear '15 seconds before losing consciousness' without understanding that that is the absolute 'upper end' of the time limit, whereas a diminished level of consciousness can begin almost immediately, and a greatly diminished level of consciousness can occur in a VERY few more seconds later. I chose 5-8 seconds a a 'happy medium', so to speak.

Your point about the flight crew's prior behavior is well taken. If you've been told to ascend to FL 350 and maintain, as this crew had been, it's not unreasonable to assume that the crew may well have (and likely would have) engaged the auto-pilot and been IN the cockpit, but not necessarily in their seats and ready to instantly respond to the emergency. As I'm thinking you most likely understand, during a catastrophic decompression a whole cr*pload of deadly serious stuff happens all at once, and the craft's survival is a matter of the flight crew doing several critical tasks in a VERY few seconds.

While virtually anything IS a possible explanation for this mystery, most reasonable people will agree that "when one hears hoof beats, one does NOT assume that they're caused by zebras".

Let's explore this further, shall we?

[rickford66]

61. sure

I mentioned the Lear ceiling because bizjets regularly fly higher than commercial jets so that an explosive decompression is more drastic. One of the systems I modeled was the pneumatics, air conditioning and pessurization system (ECS) on 72's, 74's, several bizjets, etc. The crews wanted a rapid decompression to zero differential pressure within 10 seconds. Your 5-8 second guess is very reasonable. That would mean their reactions would have to be triggered by the aural cues we provided, usually a loud bang then air hissing as a function of diff press. At say 40,000 ft, the cabin would be at 10,000 ft so the diff press would be somewhere around 8.5 (it's been a long time so I'm guessing). We also did a rapid decompression with milder effects and a slow one which was only noticeable if the flight engineer was alert. Knowing all this, I would rule out a decompression if the flight continued for some time like we are hearing. If they suffered a decompression AND survived, they would have time for a Mayday after some time interval. It's the business with the transponder that's the obvious puzzle. I saw on the news that the 777 transponder is easily turned off with a switch on the pedestal. Foul play seems more likely than the other scenarios. I wasn't sure what altitude Stewart's Lear was at, but autopilot would have leveled them off at the selected altitude even if they were dead.

[bemildred]

16. First flight investigation I can remember that resembles DU.

It flew on for hours.
Bullshit!!!
Well, It flew on for an hour.
Bullshit.
Well, where is it then?
So you think the Malaysian authorities are lying?
Who doesn't lie?
Are you calling me a liar?
.
.
.
.

[groundloop]

17. Good one

Yep, about the only fact that's not disputed is that nobody knows what happened yet. Anything else, until more facts turn up, is speculation.

[bemildred]

19. Speculation is fun. Bashing other posters in righteous indignation is even more fun.

We like to vent. I don't find it odd that it hasn't turned up yet. There are lots of ways that could happen. None of them seem optimistic though.

[karynnj]

24. It really does - and all the intrigue keeps attention from the obvious tragedy for those on the

plane. I suspect that part of the problem is the pressure to have instant answers, though here, the contradictions seem to be causing other countries to distrust Malaysia's ability to lead the investigation and search.

[bemildred]

31. People like to be right, and they like to think they know what is going on.

Uncertainty is scary. Being wrong is infuriating. And we can rationalize anything, as you can see here every day.

I don't think it is unreasonable at this point to consider anything that we have seen before, and we have seen all kinds of strange things before.

[Jamastiene]

37. This should be a DUzy!

Yup, that sounds about like DU.

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. Malaysia's transport minister denies reports plane flew on for hours

Hishammuddin Hussein also denied a US report that the plane might have flown for hours after contact was lost with the Boeing 777.
...
Mr Hussein also denied a report in the Wall Street Journal that the plane had sent engine data to the ground for more than four hours after it lost contact with air traffic control.

He said that his team had spoken to Malaysian Airlines and Rolls-Royce, the engine's manufacturers, who both said that the report was "inaccurate".

"The last transmission from the aircraft was at 0107 which indicated that everything was normal," Mr Hussein said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26559627

[B2G]

25. I don't believe anything Malaysian athorities say at this point.

[Blue_Tires]

35. Still, that 4+ hours of flight time seems fantastical....

Someone somewhere would have picked it up on radar or some tracking system....

[B2G]

36. The Malaysian military already said

They picked up an unidentified plane on radar heading west, totally off course.

Since both transponders had been turned off, that would be consistent with how this aircraft would be picked up on radar.

[Blue_Tires]

38. Well, they would have tracked it for much longer then

and then some other nation would have easily picked it up...Unless the flight flew in circles around the Indian Ocean for four hours...

But that also doesn't explain no cellular communications from passengers to loved ones...

[B2G]

39. You can't get a signal at 30,000 feet over the ocean.

And if I was a hijacker, the first thing I'd do is collect all of the phones.

As for detecting it on radar, with the transponders turned off, it wouldn't appear on ATC radars. Which is the only reason the military was able to detect it when ATC couldn't.

At least that's what I've read on other sites...

[lapislzi]

28. We have always been at war with EastAsia.

And the chocolate ration has been increased.

[Baclava]

27. what a clusterfuck - call the witch doctor back

‘witch doctor’ to track missing plane



http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1447159/video-chinese-ridicule-malaysias-recruitment-witch-doctor-track-missing

[jsr]

29. There we go

[Jamastiene]

40. He might have about the same amount of luck as most of us at figuring it out. n/t

[marions ghost]

41. witch doctors in suits

cool...I say give em a chance...

[mn9driver]

30. First, this report is just as likely to be bogus

as all of the other reports so far. In their rush to be the first to report anything at all about this, news outlets are publishing any wild-ass bullshit they're fed with no serious effort to verify anything.

However, IF this is true, then the aircraft had normal electrical power available for the whole time and someone TURNED OFF the transponder.

The 777 doesn't just report engine information, it reports dozens of system status parameters. If it was depressurized, that would have been reported as well. There is no pilot control for it. If the engine reports were sent, anything wrong with the airplane would also have been sent.

This makes as little sense as all of the other nonsense reporting so far.

[OregonBlue]

32. Rolls-Royce is denying the claim. Remember, it was the Wall Street Journal which is Murdoch. I don't

think they can be trusted as a reliable source any more. Murdoch is about selling newspapers, not about reporting facts.

[B2G]

34. Link to their denial?

Everything I've read indicates the Malaysian authorities are denying it, not Rolls-Royce.

And at this point, I don't think Malaysia could find it if it had flown up their Transportation Minister's ass.

[countryjake]

58. It was Malaysia’s Defense & acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein...

who denied it, but he cited both the Rolls Royce and Boeing teams who are right there in Kuala Lumpur and had worked with the search investigation for the past four days. At a press conference early this morning he said:

Signal reports are 'inaccurate'

"I would like to refer to news reports suggesting that the aircraft may have been flying for some time after the last contact. Those reports are inaccurate. The last transmission from the aircraft was at 01.07, which indicated everything was normal. Rolls-Royce and Boeing teams are here in Kuala Lumpur and have worked with MAS and the investigation teams since Sunday. This issue has never been raised … Since today’s media reports MAS has asked Rolls-Royce and Boeing specifically about the data. As far as Rolls-Royce and Boeing are concerned those reports are inaccurate."

Here is the link to his statement; scroll down to the section at "6.17am ET" to read an excerpt from that press conference:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/blog/2014/mar/13/mh370-no-sign-of-debris-detected-by-chinese-satellite-live-updates


Now a little later on this morning, after that Malaysian press conference, when Rolls Royce was pressed for more information on Hussein's denial, the company declined to comment.

At the same link as above, scroll down to the section at "9.18am ET" to see the report on their refusal to comment.

Rolls-Royce

Rolls-Royce is refusing to comment on claims made by the Malaysian authorities on the last signal sent by the missing plane.

During today’s press conference Malaysia’s acting transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein dismissed a report in the Wall Street Journal claiming that the signals could have sent out by the plane hours after it lost contact with air traffic control. He also claimed both the makers of the missing plane, Boeing, and the makers of its engines, Rolls-Royce, backed this view.

He said: “Since today’s media reports MAS [Malaysia Airlines] has asked Rolls-Royce and Boeing specifically about the data. As far as Rolls-Royce and Boeing are concerned those reports are inaccurate.”

But when our transport correspondent Gwyn Topham asked Rolls-Royce to confirm this, it declined.

[bigworld]

49. The White House seems to believe it

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/china-satellite-spots-floating-objects/2014/03/13/72688034-aa68-11e3-b61e-8051b8b52d06_story.html?wpisrc=al_national

[cbdo2007]

33. Wow, can't believe there are still so many "unconfirmed reports"....

we had rumors of bodies in life vests yesterday, chinese satellite photos, etc and still nobody knows anything. This story is starting to get strange.

[brett_jv]

43. Like I've told you all ... Hurley obviously didn't enter the Numbers into the Computer on time

The people are all on The Island, waiting to get rescued ...

[Auntie Bush]

47. Wouldn't it be nice if all those passengers may still be alive. I feel for the relatives

not knowing. Get hopes up, dashed, hopes up, dashed, up, down, up ................. until they find the plane and or wreckage. Tough on ones emotions! I don't know how they stand it.

[countryjake]

46. (Latest Update) Now the Pentagon is confirming this original report...

basically saying the exact opposite of what the Malaysian Defense and Transport Minister (Hishammuddin Hussein) said at that press conference early this morning.

US is sending a destroyer (USS Kidd) into the Indian Ocean to extend the search.

Also, according to newer information (from the USA), there was no indication that those Rolls Royce engines suffered any impact. An emergency beacon that would have sent data if the plane was about to impact the ocean apparently did not go off, the official said, suggesting perhaps the plane was still likely in some stable flight pattern when it disappeared.

(Per CNN ~ breaking news with information coming from Barbara Starr, the network's Pentagon correspondent, based in Washington, DC. She stressed that this new information is not necessarily conclusive.)

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/13/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

[Jerry442]

51. "...new information is not necessarily conclusive."

'Scuse me, but if they have actual verified telemetry from the plane a long time after the transponder signal was lost that's pretty damn conclusive about the continuing airborne status of the plane.

It's only inconclusive if the information came from a guy whose cousin knows somebody whose boyfriend might have heard something, which seems to me to be the quality of journalism we're getting here.

[bigworld]

48. Update from the Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/china-satellite-spots-floating-objects/2014/03/13/72688034-aa68-11e3-b61e-8051b8b52d06_story.html?wpisrc=al_national

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Authorities searching for a missing Malaysian airliner may extend the hunt hundreds of miles farther west into the Indian Ocean, a U.S. official said Thursday, as the Malaysian government acknowledged it has made little progress in solving the mystery of the vanished plane.

The White House cited unspecified “new information” as the basis for expanding the search.

The officials said they did not know what direction the plane flew — or whether it simply circled — during that time or whether it was airborne at all. But four hours of additional flight could have put the plane somewhere over the Indian Ocean, prompting U.S. officials to consider expanding the search into that area.

[LongTomH]

50. This is turning into a Twilight Zone episode!!!!!!

[northoftheborder]

55. You get a gold star for BEST THREAD POST!!!!!

[EX500rider]

54. Helios Airways Flight 522 looks more and more likely to me...or Somali pirates..

"Helios Airways Flight 522 was a scheduled Helios Airways passenger flight that crashed into a mountain on 14 August 2005 at 12:04 pm EEST, north of Marathon and Varnavas, Greece, whilst flying from Larnaca, Cyprus to Athens, Greece. A lack of oxygen incapacitated the crew, leading to the aircraft's eventual crash after running out of fuel. Rescue teams located the wreckage near the community of Grammatiko, 40 km (25 mi) from Athens. All 115 passengers and 6 crew on board the aircraft were killed.

When the aircraft arrived from London Heathrow earlier that morning, the previous flight crew had reported a frozen door seal and abnormal noises coming from the right aft service door, and requested a full inspection of the door. The inspection was carried out by a ground engineer who then performed a pressurization leak check. In order to carry out this check without requiring the aircraft's engines, the pressurisation system was set to "manual". However, the engineer failed to reset it to "auto" on completion of the test.

After the aircraft was returned into service, the flight crew overlooked the pressurisation system state on three separate occasions: during the pre-flight procedure, the after-start check, and the after take-off check. During these checks, no one in the flight crew noticed the incorrect setting. The aircraft took off at 9:07 with the pressurisation system still set to "manual", and the aft outflow valve partially open."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522

One of the stewards made it the cockpit and tried to fly it also.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522

[WhoWoodaKnew]

56. Everybody is guessing