MH370 KUL-PEK

[kurogane]

I wonder if he is willing to surrender all the information he has in his hands? Even that would only prove he really is French.......

I prefer the mystery continues. It's sort of romantic that in this technoaddled day and age we can have an Amelia Earhart of our own.

[Russell]

I wonder if he is willing to surrender all the information he has in his hands? Even that would only prove he really is French.......

I prefer the mystery continues. It's sort of romantic that in this technoaddled day and age we can have an Amelia Earhart of our own.

Not sure whether the families of the missing agree with this...

[kurogane]

I was just F'in around. The uncertainty must be terrible for them. If only for their peace of mind I welcome some sort of conclusive news, though I am not sure this sort of rank speculation does any good.

[Coligny]

"Paris Match" is as reliable as "the sun" without the bewbs pictures...

Look for "le monde" or "liberation" if you want more than pocket change in journalism reliability...

Also, since when are merkunz afraid of openly shooting civies from the sky ?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

[Russell]

AirAsia Flight QZ8501 with 162 on board goes missing on way to Singapore

An AirAsia passenger jet carrying 162 people lost contact with Indonesian air traffic control early Sunday, gripping Southeast Asia with a second missing plane crisis in less than a year.

The search operation for the missing AirAsia Flight QZ8501 has been halted for the night, but big ships won't return to shore and will leave their searchlights on, according to the Indonesian Transportation Ministry.

Before communication was lost, one of the pilots asked to fly at a higher altitude because of bad weather, officials said.

The aircraft, flying from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore, went missing as it flew at 38,000 feet over the Java Sea between the islands of Belitung and Borneo -- a heavily traveled shipping channel with shallow waters, according to Indonesian authorities, who are leading the search and rescue operations.

"The plane has lost contact at 06:17 a.m. local time," the Indonesian Transportation Ministry's acting director general for air transportation affairs, Djoko Murdjatmojo, said. The aircraft disappeared from radar observations at 6:18 a.m., he said, and air traffic control officers monitored the presence of the plane until 7:55 a.m.

Of the people on board the Airbus A320-200, 155 are Indonesian, three are South Korean, one is British, one is French, one is Malaysian and one is Singaporean, the airline said.

[...]

Heavy thunderstorms in area

Flight 8501 "was requesting deviation due to en route weather before communication with the aircraft was lost," the airline said.

The flight's captain asked permission to climb to a higher altitude, Murdjatmojo said, according to the national news agency.

According to flight tracking websites, almost the entire flight path of the plane was over the sea.

Bad weather gripped the region at the time, CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam said.

"We still had lines of very heavy thunderstorms" when the plane was flying, Van Dam said. "But keep in mind, turbulence doesn't necessarily bring down airplanes."

CNN aviation analyst Mary Schiavo said that if there was an onboard emergency, the pilots should have issued a mayday call or a pan-pan call.

"Mayday means you're immediately in danger of losing the flight; pan-pan means that it is urgent but that you can continue the flight and request an alternate route or an alternate airport," said Schiavo, a former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportation.

"It's disconcerting in that the standard procedures for an emergency don't seem to have been deployed," she said.

The bad weather in the area is also likely to hamper the search efforts for the aircraft, said Alan Diehl, a former U.S. air accident investigator.

The Malaysian government said it had deployed three vessels and three aircraft to help Indonesian authorities in the search for the plane. Singapore said it had activated its rescue and aviation agencies. Australia and India said said they had also offered assistance.

Very good' safety reputation

AirAsia is a Malaysia-based airline that is popular in the region as a budget carrier. It has about 100 destinations, with affiliate companies in several Asian countries.

The missing plane is operated by AirAsia's Indonesian affiliate, in which the Malaysian company holds a 48.9% stake, according to its website.

AirAsia has a "very good" reputation for safety, CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest said.

Flight 8501's captain has a total of 6,100 flying hours, and the first officer a total of 2,275 flying hours, the airline said. The plane's last scheduled maintenance was on November 16, it said.

More

Hmm, seems the aliens are targeting only airliners from Malaysia...

[Coligny]

It was an Ill00minaty plane shot down by lizzard people seditious faction...

[Russell]

It was an Ill00minaty plane shot down by lizzard people seditious faction...

Looks like the Malaysians have a lot of those planes these days...

[Coligny]

Yup, wonder why there is so much ill00minaties in the Malaysian air business... Certainly because US weather weapon masheen can be tested more sneakily in those waters but they still need to prevent aircraft pilots to report abnormal weather event creation. Like the earthquake masheen they hide in Yokota airbase. Nobody can know if it's a normal quake or a US test...

(I think with just a little bit more of sleep deprivation I will be able to finish writing my script for a reboot of the X-Files... With much more redhead n00dity)

[Tsuru]

This is looking like a repeat of AF447... high altitude stall after forgetting how to pilot when there's big weather around

[matsuki]

This is looking like a repeat of AF447... high altitude stall after forgetting how to pilot when there's big weather around

Not another hijacking?

[wagyl]

This is looking like a repeat of AF447... high altitude stall after forgetting how to pilot when there's big weather around

Not another hijacking?

Which was the last hijacking you were thinking of?

I saw a comment on twitter about slow ground speed on a trajectory increasing altitude, which fits in with Tsuru's thinking.

But my strongest feeling, in these recent times of constantly-on news cycle and the rush to be first to publish, is that it is best to sit tight and wait for news to solidify a bit before throwing conjecture around.

In other news for bunker dwellers (if I am not on ignore)... https://twitter.com/flightradar24/statu ... 2374676480

[kurogane]

Fair comment, but a Reptilian conspirancy is faaaaaarrrrrrrrrr more interesting than pilot error..........

Anyways, I heard they were spitroasting the head stewardess when they hit a speed bump and went ass over teakettle.

FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Russell]

There is speculation in the media that the plane was flying too slow, causing it to stall. However, isn't it possible to recover from a stall at the high altitude it flew?

[Coligny]

There is speculation in the media that the plane was flying too slow, causing it to stall. However, isn't it possible to recover from a stall at the high altitude it flew?

Usually yes, unless you drive a U2... but it requires to know 1-what the plane is really doing and 2-what the pilot should be doing
If it's a pitot again, they can't know their speed and must fly by the seat, which is not really taught anymore.Then, there is #2

[matsuki]

This is looking like a repeat of AF447... high altitude stall after forgetting how to pilot when there's big weather around

Not another hijacking?

Which was the last hijacking you were thinking of?

You know the one at least that's the theory I subscribe to. If they ever find that bitch and that's not the case, I'll owe you a beer.

[Coligny]

This is looking like a repeat of AF447... high altitude stall after forgetting how to pilot when there's big weather around

Not another hijacking?

Which was the last hijacking you were thinking of?

You know the one at least that's the theory I subscribe to. If they ever find that bitch and that's not the case, I'll owe you a beer.

Are you one of those fruitcakes who believes Al Qaeda really exists ?

[Tsuru]

There is speculation in the media that the plane was flying too slow, causing it to stall. However, isn't it possible to recover from a stall at the high altitude it flew?

You are not supposed to be able to stall an Airbus, but what happened in AF447 is that because the probes which sense airspeed iced over, the aircraft entered a more permissive mode since stall protections are not available when airspeed input is unavailable. For some reason the crew then blindly followed the flight directors telling the crew to pull the nose up until airspeed decayed until the aircraft stalled. For reasons which have to do with the way the warnings and indications are designed, the crew was fed contradictory information, kept pulling the nose up and the aircraft fell down from FL380 in just over 3.5 minutes.

Looking at the data which is currently available it certainly looks like this is also what happened to this flight.

[kurogane]

That would make Disaster Porn addicts reach for a box of tissues. Well written shiite. Hopefully this latest one has landed on a secret island and the passengers and crew are living a tropical bacchanalia. Sadly, probably not.

I fly in 10 minutes. Pray for me...................

[Coligny]

I fly in 10 minutes. Pray for me...................

Will "allah u ackbar" do as a prayer ?

[Russell]

Debris possibly linked to missing AirAsia jet spotted

Debris possibly linked to missing AirAsia jet has been spotted in the Java Sea, Indonesia Search and Rescue says.

At least 10 objects were found nearly six miles from where the plane lost contact with air traffic control.

An Indonesian military aircraft spotted white, red and black objects including what appears to be a life jacket about 105 miles off the coast of Pangkalan Bun. One helicopter has been dispatched to pick up the items for investigation.

[...]

AirAsia Flight 8501, an Airbus A320-200 that carried 162 people, disappeared Sunday after seeking permission to climb above threatening clouds.

Based on the plane's last known coordinates, the aircraft probably crashed into the water and "is at the bottom of the sea," Indonesia search-and-rescue chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo said. Still, searchers planned to expand their efforts onto land on Tuesday.

Searchers spotted two oily patches and floating objects in separate locations, but it was not known any of it was related to the plane that vanished halfway into what should have been a two-hour hop from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore. The area is a busy shipping lane. Officials saw little reason to believe the flight met anything but a grim fate.

The air search resumed Tuesday morning, with more assets and an expanded area, said Indonesia's Search and Rescue Agency chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo.

He said at least 30 ships, 15 aircraft and seven helicopters were looking for the jet. Most of the craft were Indonesian but Singapore, Malaysia and Australia contributed to the effort. Aircraft from Thailand planned to join Tuesday's search.

The search area has been widened, with four military helicopters dispatched just after sunrise near Pangkalan Bun on the western part of Borneo island and to smaller islands of Bangka and Belitung, Bambang Soelistyo said.

"Until now, we have not yet found any signal or indication of the plane's whereabouts," Soelistyo told The Associated Press, adding fishermen from Belitung island were also helping.

Jakarta's air force base commander, Rear Marshal Dwi Putranto, said an Australian Orion aircraft had detected "suspicious" objects near an island about 100 miles (160 kilometers) off central Kalimantan. That's about 700 miles (1,120 kilometers) from where the plane lost contact, but within Monday's greatly expanded search area.

"However, we cannot be sure whether it is part of the missing AirAsia plane," Putranto said. "We are now moving in that direction."

More

Latest news has it that victims have been found. Poor souls.

[J.A.F.O]

I fly in 10 minutes. Pray for me...................

Will "allah u ackbar" do as a prayer ?

Suuuuure, because it works so well for insurgents er wait ... Well Best of luck there Kuro

[wagyl]

Not another hijacking?

Which was the last hijacking you were thinking of?

You know the one at least that's the theory I subscribe to. If they ever find that bitch and that's not the case, I'll owe you a beer.

Oh, that hijack. The one which is a secret and nobody claims any responsibility for, so that people know who to fear might commit repeat secret hijacks. And there will be repeats, because without a claim of responsibility no one will know what the hijacker's demands are, and those demands will not be met.

Maybe the hijackers are allied with the mysterious PM spammer, waiting a year and a half before resurfacing and making their presence known.

[Russell]

Hurdle in Hunt for Missing Jet: Tracking System

Just nine months after a Malaysia Airlines flight vanished, the puzzling loss of another passenger plane once again has highlighted an urgent question: How can modern jetliners simply disappear in today’s hyper-connected world?

As the search for AirAsia’s Flight 8501 off the coast of Indonesia entered its third day, aviation experts said the difficulty in locating the wreckage underscored the limitations in how planes are tracked, and showed how little has changed since the last disappearance.

Airlines use satellites to provide Internet connections for passengers, yet they still do not stream data in real time about a plane’s location and condition. As a result, Indonesian authorities have not been able to determine whether the plane, which carried 162 people, fell straight down or glided for miles before presumably crashing into the water, where search teams were converging.

The problems were compounded, experts say, by a lengthy delay in declaring an emergency after air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane, which slowed the search and rescue efforts.

“For basically an hour and a half they were struggling with the issue and not making any progress to initiate a search,” said Robert W. Mann Jr., an aviation consultant based in Port Washington, N.Y. “That’s a long time in that situation.”

No signs of the wreckage from the presumed crash were found on Monday, and the search resumed on Tuesday morning. Roughly 30 ships and 15 aircraft from at least four countries, including the United States, were involved in the search for the jet in the Java Sea, near the islands of Borneo, Java and Sumatra. Search teams, which included fishing boats pressed into service and vessels from Australia, Malaysia and Singapore, covered a large area of water near the island of Belitung, the last known location of the plane.

By contrast to the slowness of the response in both Asian disasters, experts said, air controllers in the United States today would probably sound an alarm within five to 10 minutes of losing contact with a jet.

“Everybody learned a lesson after the 9/11 hijackings,” in which some of the terrorists turned off the transponders that signal a plane’s location, said Peter Goelz, a former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board. “So if that squawk suddenly goes off, it gets a lot of attention here.”

The delay in declaring an emergency, which also occurred after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 veered off course in March, could have been because of a lack of training or bureaucratic fears about acknowledging a serious problem, analysts said.

Apart from the specifics of the two disappearances, the technological issues have been the subject of substantial debate among airlines all over the world.

Since the Malaysia Airlines jet disappeared, the International Civil Aviation Organization, which sets global airline standards, has been considering new rules on tracking planes. But the organization has moved slowly, primarily because it has been hard for the industry to reach a consensus, given the extra costs involved and how rarely crashes occur, Mr. Goelz said.

Most airline executives say there is no need for planes to constantly transmit their locations and that, with tens of thousands of planes in the air each day, such a deluge of data could cost billions of dollars. In addition to being tracked by land-based radar, most jetliners also have transponders, radios and text data-links that periodically send the plane’s coordinates and information about engine performance.

But some industry officials and many independent analysts say that the second such disappearance demands a response — and the sooner the better. They say the best compromise could be a system that would start streaming a nearly constant flow of such data whenever a plane deviated from normal flight parameters. These experts contend that such a system is particularly needed on transoceanic flights, where today’s large planes are often operating far outside radar range.

The issue first gained wide attention after an Air France jet crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009 on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, and it took nearly two years for investigators to locate the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, the so-called black boxes that helped them reconstruct what had gone wrong with the flight.

Air France has since taken the lead in transmitting more data, programming its jets to send their positions, altitudes and fuel supplies every 10 minutes during normal operations and every minute in an emergency.

AirAsia recently began to improve the tracking of its fleet, but the plane that was lost this week had not yet been upgraded, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

Under a timeline released by Indonesian authorities, radar and radio contact with the Airbus A320-200 jet was lost at 6:17 a.m. local time on Sunday morning, just five minutes after the pilots had asked to change their routing as they flew through an area with severe storms.

The air traffic controllers also received a final data transmission of the plane’s location at 6:17, and all contact was lost a minute later. But the controllers did not formally state that the jet’s position was uncertain until 7:08 a.m. or declare an alert until 7:28 a.m. They finally declared an emergency distress situation at 7:55 a.m.

No one knows what happened to the plane, though perils from the storm could have destabilized it or disoriented the pilots.

Mr. Mann, the aviation analyst, said that if the jet had been using a streaming or near-streaming data system, it would have transmitted more location data as the plane fell or glided toward the Java Sea, and that could have provided a more precise area to search for survivors.

Passenger jets are equipped with electronic locator transmitters that are supposed to broadcast their location when a plane crashes into the ground or the sea. But Indonesian officials have not detected any distress signal, either because the device malfunctioned or the AirAsia plane submerged too quickly for the signal to be heard. The officials have also not detected any pinging from the black boxes, which emit their own signals for at least 30 days even if underwater.

The battery life of the transmitters on most black boxes is likely to be extended to 90 days to increase the chances of recovery. But proposals to switch to black boxes that would be ejected during a crash, and could float on the water, have gathered more support in Europe than in the United States and Asia, analysts said.

Still, Mr. Goelz, the former National Transportation Safety Board official, said, “I think that with the enormous cost of these searches, and the uncertainty being so great, there will come a time for more action.”

More

[Russell]

Latest news has it that the found 6 bodies and pieces of wreckage.

They will also extend the search to not only the sea but also land, which suggests that they think the plane disintegrated in the air.

[Coligny]

Latest news has it that the found 6 bodies and pieces of wreckage.

They will also extend the search to not only the sea but also land, which suggests that they think the plane disintegrated in the air.

Or crashed on land...

Mid air disintegration tend to spread sprinkles all over the place... So i think, that over the sea it makes it easier to find some floaty stuff than if the plane had gone hunting for Red Oktober in one piece...

[Coligny]

I fly in 10 minutes. Pray for me...................

Will "allah u ackbar" do as a prayer ?

Suuuuure, because it works so well for insurgents er wait ... Well Best of luck there Kuro

I take first dib' on his stuff...

[Russell]

Latest news has it that the found 6 bodies and pieces of wreckage.

They will also extend the search to not only the sea but also land, which suggests that they think the plane disintegrated in the air.

Or crashed on land...

Mid air disintegration tend to spread sprinkles all over the place... So i think, that over the sea it makes it easier to find some floaty stuff than if the plane had gone hunting for Red Oktober in one piece...

They already found wreckage at sea. If they expect to find it on land too, then it is sprinkled all over the place, supporting the hypothesis that it disintegrated midair.

[matsuki]

This is looking like a repeat of AF447... high altitude stall after forgetting how to pilot when there's big weather around

Not another hijacking?

Which was the last hijacking you were thinking of?

You know the one at least that's the theory I subscribe to. If they ever find that bitch and that's not the case, I'll owe you a beer.

Are you one of those fruitcakes who believes Al Qaeda really exists ?

I'm just fixated on the manual turning off of the location transmission. That could be the work of one deranged individual, doesn't need to be terrorists or whatever.

[Grumpy Gramps]

Or a competitor, who'd like to increase their market share in that area. They'd have the knowledge, the expertise and the opportunity to do a little sabotage here and there (and then buy some put options for good measure).

[matsuki]

Or a competitor, who'd like to increase their market share in that area. They'd have the knowledge, the expertise and the opportunity to do a little sabotage here and there (and then buy some put options for good measure).

Fuuuuuuuuuu, my mind didn't go there but the value of human life isn't the same in many places so unfortunately, I can see that being a possibility as well. Anyhow, the latest documentary I saw on it basically convinced me there was some sort of human intervention behind it. Whatever the reason or where the plane ended up, fucked if I know and I'm not tinfoil hat enough to start speculating.