How do you lose a plane?

No, I got it. But then again, I'm the kind of guy that bothers to throw away the wrapper that the yummy candy bar came in. But I'll give you the shout out for handing me that candy bar.

You feel me, bra?!

 

Wow. Welcome back the_jazz! Didn't see ya there.
Not sure who "you" is but I was being facetious in my last post.
The conspiracy stuff bugs the hell outta me and the X many parts (ooh, how wondrous) is also a point of derision and that was before you enlightened me.

Let's see, original query. How do we lose a plane?
Latest explanation is the one that seemed most likely based on no evidence: catastrophic failure over the ocean.

 

Just saw on CNN a picture that may be the wreckage in the ocean..... OMFG what a blurry non image picture. To me it looks like most other things in the picture. Just smaller.....

Yes @the_jazz you fly a hell of a lot more than I do, and better you than me.

Side note. I herd somewhere that the battery in the black box is only good for 30 days. True or false?

 

Well, whatever. I didn't think we disagreed on this, at all, but a jet-setter like yourself can certainly recognize a slack-jawed Midwestern yokel like me.

 

Fangirl, draw your own conclusions on who and what I meant. If you think I meant you, I'm sure you remember how the "report post" feature works and you can get all passive-aggressive on me just for old times sake since I am THE FUCKING DEVIL AND THE REASON THAT TFP SUCKS. You know, just in case you need a push.

Good times...

So let's talk about how aviation radar works. It's actually a couple of signals; one that "paints" the plane and gives the return to the receiver. The other is a "smart" signal that queries the plane's transponder to get basic information like ID, heading, speed. That's how an air traffic controller knows which plane is which without having to ask. The technology has been around 40+ years and works pretty well. Every commercial plane has 2. Without the transponder signals, a big flock of birds can look like a plane.

Now, MS370's transponders (there are 2, a primary and a backup) were turned off. And for that to happen, they physically have to be turned off. A human hand has to turn the switch from the "on" position to the "off" or "stand-by" position (there are 3 settings). Transponders can break and cause interference with other systems, but pilots are supposed to notify everyone around them that they've switched off the transponders. Additionally, they don't draw much power, so they'd be among the last systems onboard to fail in the event of a power failure. They also have the ability to be reset to specified codes to let ground controllers know what's going on - like if there's an emergency or a hijacking.

One of the reasons that the Malaysians are having such a hard time tracking the plane is that the transponders got turned off. So that means that they can't just go through the secondary signal's records to track flights the way that they normally would. They're left looking at the records of the primary signal trying to figure out which one doesn't have the transponder on and whether or not it was there in the last pass. It's a difficult process, to say the least.

So this becomes that much more mysterious. Why would the transponder be all the way off? What explains the course changes, if indeed they did happen. The Chinese may have found some wreckage via satellite (but may not have since the shapes they found are square and don't correspond to any aircraft parts that size).

 

...ow

 

That's the battery that sends out the "ping" for searchers to find. The Air France black box was under 2 miles of water for 2 years and provided accurate data to the Airbus folks that made it.

If that's the conclusion you drew, so be it. That's on you, not me. [shrug]

 

...ahem

 

Awesome! Now you can wonder what I'm saying when you see I quote you! Huzzah!
--- merged: Mar 12, 2014 at 9:46 PM ---

I can, without any doubt in the world, say that is absolutely, completely untrue since I responded to them back in the day.

So I can call you a liar and actually NOT flame you.

O happy day!

 

...oops

 

Then what was that warm, brown gooey thing I was left with?

Ugh. Again.

No, I'm pretty sure that this may be the scene where the young marshal has it out with the corrupt old sheriff while the piany player does his thing and the barkeep ducks down to grab his shotgun.

That's what I get for trying to be anything like @plan9 - my jokes require explanation and I've got the bedside manner of a coked up 80's fraternity guy.
--- merged: Mar 12, 2014 at 9:58 PM ---

I read the PM's you sent me, lady. As well as the ones he did.

And I never read anyone's PM's that weren't addressed to me.

 

edit/
How very rude of us to hijack this post.

It seems they've ruled out bombs.
So, even if there is not definitive evidence for awhile it can be assumed that something huge and fast took down the plane.

 

OK......... so if the "black box" pings underwater, then why wouldn't all the boats have whatever it is that picks up the pinging noise?
In a side note I have learned a lot about planes on this thread.

 

There are only so many boats and the water they are searching is quite large. This is exacerbated by the fact that they aren't really sure where the plane went down.

I am still not convinced that something as large as a 777 could enter the water intact. This isn't Olympic diving. If something that large hits the water at that speed, it's going to break up on impact. If it went down, it will leave a debris field. The question is, where did it go down? As they don't know, it's going to take time.

It's really just a matter of when it will be found, not if.

 

So apparently the engines send information to Rolls Royce periodically for maintenance purposes and the pings they got may have been hours later than when the last message came.
At least according to The Wall Street Journal.
U.S. Investigators Suspect Missing Airplane Flew On for Hours - WSJ.com
Hard to say exactly what that means but it sure adds to the craziness.

 

From the article that @redravin links to above:

It begs the question, how does something as large as a 777 stay completely off radar, regardless of it's transponders being on or off?


Aside: this feels like the plot point in a James Bond film.

 

I herd on the radio this am on the way to work that their are reports that the planes engines were running for several hours after they lost radar contact with the plane. How do they know that?