Engine Data Reveals That Flight 370 Flew On For Hours After It "Disappeared"

Advocatus Diaboli writes "Aviation investigators and national security officials believe the plane flew for a total of five hours based on data automatically downloaded and sent to the ground from the Boeing Co. 777's engines as part of a routine maintenance and monitoring program. As part of its maintenance agreements, Malaysia Airlines transmits its engine data live to Rolls-Royce for analysis. The system compiles data from inside the 777's two Trent 800 engines and transmits snapshots of performance, as well as the altitude and speed of the jet. Those snippets are compiled and transmitted in 30-minute increments, said one person familiar with the system." Update: 03/14 11:41 GMT by S : The WSJ has since updated its report to say the data was from the plane's satellite-communication system. However, Malaysian authorities have denied both scenarios, saying neither Boeing nor Rolls-Royce received data past 1:07am (the flight initially disappeared off radar at 1:30am).

Re:Here's What Will Happen

[Le Marteau]

The United States was founded on a conspiracy. Literally.

That the people are being conditioned to automatically consider anything labeled a "conspiracy" automatically laughable says a lot about the degeneration of the U.S.

Re:Here's What Will Happen

[khallow]

Ah, the Important Person has spoken. The rest of us are the wackos this time!

Re:Turns out, no.

[multi io]

Authorities quickly debunked this story this AM.

Denied, not debunked. Big difference.

Re:Here's What Will Happen

[geekoid]

Nope.
It's a "conspiracy theory." when you have no actual data to back up a statement. Usually note be the ever expanding circle the conspiracy must encompass when you raise questions about the person uttering the conspiracy theory.

I'm sorry* reality doesn't coincide with your pet narrative. Doubly sorry* you seem to be aware of critical thinking, yet have no idea how to use it or what it actually is.

*I'm no really sorry.

Re:Here's What Will Happen

[Goody]

It's when a theory is implausible and the "critical thinkers" spend years obsessed with beating a dead horse they get labeled conspiracy nut tinfoil hat wearing wackos, like the 911 truthers, the we-didn't-go-to-the-moon people, or the nutbags who are still asking for Obama's birth certificate. Critical thinking is fine and welcome in this country. Obsessing about implausible made up scenarios driven by agendas or outrage isn't.

What about radar?

[Brainguy]

Something I don't understand is how the plane disappeared from radar yet kept flying. Switching off a transponder does not make a plane disappear from radar, it just means there is a blip on the radar without the data a transponder provides. The fact that no one is bringing this up leads me to believe I'm missing something big here, because as far as I know the only way that plane could have disappeared completely from radar was if it disintegrated.

The real puzzle

[Advocatus Diaboli]

Evidently the aircraft had enough power to run the pinging transmitter for over 4 hours after the transponder went dead (or was turned off). This implies that the aircraft also had enough power and structural integrity for at least some of its communication systems to work. But the experienced pilots did not make even one distress call or issue a single distress code. Why not? What prevented them from doing it?

Re:What about radar?

[Anonymous Coward]

Something I don't understand is how the plane disappeared from radar yet kept flying. Switching off a transponder does not make a plane disappear from radar, it just means there is a blip on the radar without the data a transponder provides. The fact that no one is bringing this up leads me to believe I'm missing something big here, because as far as I know the only way that plane could have disappeared completely from radar was if it disintegrated.

A blip is just a blip among presumably hundreds of other blips. Without a transponder, you're going to have a hell of a time identifying a particular blip as the aircarft that you're searching for.

Re:Napkin time

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you need a new napkin. It's fair to think they flew in a reasonably straight line, so you don't have a circle of area, you have a donut. The width of the donut is the % deviation from "straight line" that you think is fair.

Re:Already denied

[Cimexus]

Frankly, with the amount of conflicting and inaccurate information/speculation coming from all corners about this matter, I'm just tuning out for a week or two until something more concrete is discovered.

Re:Maybe it's just Little Country Syndrome?

[mjwx]

Say they are doing their best to reassure the domestic population that they are in competent control of the disaster, but they're in over their heads...

Not quite.

MAS is owned by the Malaysian Government holdings company (either wholly or majority, I cant remember which) and the airline has recently had another period of unprofitably. This is less about assuring the Malaysian people of anything and more about trying to do damage control to the rest of the world. Sadly they're doing it in SE Asian style which is more about maintaining face than fixing issues.

In addition to this, MAS is getting a lot of competition from Malaysia's low cost airline Air Asia and anything else that could eat into the MAS's revenue is detrimental to the Malaysian Govt so they're dialling the damage control up to 11.

Re:Turns out, no.

[colinnwn]

"some illegal military operation" Why does it have to be illegal? It could be a simple as we don't want to disclose our full worldwide surveillance capabilities. We've also been told that the transponders were turned off or quit working. But I haven't read anyone claim the same of the radios. Possibly the circuit breakers on the VHF/HF transceivers weren't pulled and the plane did to continue sending ACARS engine performance data on VHF/HF and for whatever reason MAS didn't receive or is denying receiving it, and US signal intelligence did pick it up.

Re:Already denied

[nobuddy]

Having dealt with the Navy for a decade..... I'd say it's 50-50

Re:unbelievable

[Anonymous Coward]

In Asia: Everyone has healthcare.
In the US: If you get sick or have an accident, its gods way of punishing you and you are bankrupt and then dead.
In Asia: hijacked planes crash harmlessly into the ocean.
In the US: despite knowing where every plane is every second, 2 of them crash into 2 big buildings one after the other while you stand their with your dicks in your hands.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Already denied

[icebike]

Damn you auto-correct!

Note, it occurred to me later that the one country that has had airplanes flown into buildings might very well develop means of tracking planes that intentionally go off the grid, either by additional transmitters hidden in diagnostic gear, or other means.

Since the SAR beacons haven't gone off or haven't been heard, they too might have been disabled.

Re:Already denied

[flyingsquid]

The big question is, how the HELL is it possible to lose an entire commercial aircraft in 2014? I've seen some articles to the effect that it's difficult to cover the entire earth with enough radars to track planes over the ocean. OK, sure, but that's the obsolete ACARS system. That's why we have satellite communications. For $150 you can buy a portable GPS beacon from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Spot-Sat... [amazon.com] and then there's a subscription fee which is maybe $100/year. Basically, for $250 your kayak trip sends GPS updates every 5 minutes so it can't be lost at sea, it just seems bizarre that a commercial aircraft carrying 200 people wouldn't have even that minimal sort of tracking ability. And there are companies building similar technology for aircraft- basically, streaming the black-box data in real time over satellite networks. It would be expensive to implement, but how many millions of dollars have been spent on ships and helicopters for the rescue effort?

Critical Thinking = Bullshit

[aaaaaaargh!]

"You see, in America, critical thinking is prized right up to the point where an important person(tm) speaks. All subsequent critical thinking is conspiracy nut batshit tinfoil hat wearing wacko pluck-your-banjo-with-your-single-tooth teabagger loony."

What is called "Critical Thinking" is responsible for a steep decline of academic proficiency. Right next to my work place is a room full of people who work on critical thinking theories every day, yet they have a hard time formulating sound arguments, lack any math or formal reasoning skills whatsoever, and pull the content of their qualitative 'research' essays out of their asses.

I'm not saying critical thinking is undesirable in general, but what runs under this label nowadays clearly is. For real critical thinking you need to first learn how to think, learn the state of the art and acquire hard skills, and then you might be able to criticize. Not vice versa.

That's also the problem of the conspiracy nuts. They confuse making up a coherent story with science. And even worse, they usually get the 'coherence' part wrong, too.