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Topic: Missing Malaysia Airlines jet

Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-17-2014 09:42 PM

Well if that was the case they'd get spotted on radar long before they ever got near the White House.

As for the flight simulator thing...I don't see anything weird about that. Maybe he just really likes flight. I work at a movie theater, but what do I often do in spare time after work? Watch a movie at the theater.

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Paul Mayer
Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under!

Posts: 3836
From: Albuquerque, NM
Registered: Feb 2000

posted 03-17-2014 10:23 PM

Lots of pilots have some sort of desktop PCATDs (Personal Computer-based Aviation Training Device) at home. They are a very good way to stay proficient at instrument flying, as well as practicing the various flight deck flows that a given transport-category aircraft (or airline) requires. Under certain conditions, the time logged on such a device can be logged and counted towards the minimum time requirements mandated under ICAO rules and/or an air carrier's operations specifications.

Looks like Captain Shah put together a pretty nice PCATD: multiple flat panel displays and physical control modules, plus the s/w to produce the appearance of a 777's flight deck, as well as the navigation, terrain and airport databases needed to cover the routes that MH flies. Capt. Shah comes across to me as someone who is clearly into and loves his job - like most pilots that reach his level of experience.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 03-18-2014 12:07 AM

With the air defense systems now in place there's zero chance of any large aircraft like a passenger jet getting even remotely close to the white house. It's just not going to happen.

It would even be difficult to fly a small drone near the White House. Probably impossible to pilot a drone armed with any ordinance that could do significant damage. The only thing that has a chance against the White House is some kind of natural disaster, like a tornado.

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 03-18-2014 12:17 AM

If the plane has been stolen by terrorists intent on using it as a flying weapon, it seems reasonable to speculate that they'll use it on a target that is either undefended (from aerial attack), or has defences that the terrorists believe that they can overcome. If they have succeeded in stealing an airliner in the middle of a commercial flight, it seems safe to assume that they stand a good chance of being able to fulfil the rest of their plan, unless the authorities find out what that plan is in time to stop them.

In other news, a friend commented in a phone call just now that because Captain Shah's political hero (Anwar Ibrahim) has just been convicted of sodomizing his brother, he must have decided to go one better and sodomize an entire airliner...

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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 03-18-2014 12:20 AM

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Terry Lynn-Stevens
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1081
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2012

posted 03-18-2014 12:47 AM

quote: Leo Enticknap
If the plane has been stolen by terrorists intent on using it as a flying weapon, it seems reasonable to speculate that they'll use it on a target that is either undefended (from aerial attack), or has defences that the terrorists believe that they can overcome. If they have succeeded in stealing an airliner in the middle of a commercial flight, it seems safe to assume that they stand a good chance of being able to fulfil the rest of their plan, unless the authorities find out what that plan is in time to stop them

I agree with you there Leo, it could be used as a weapon. Flying under 5000 feet will keep it off of radar although flying under 5000 feet will reduce your range on how far the plane can travel. It seems unlikely that the plane could possibly make it to mainland America flying at that level.

quote: Leo Enticknap
In other news, a friend commented in a phone call just now that because Captain Shah's political hero (Anwar Ibrahim) has just been convicted of sodomizing his brother, he must have decided to go one better and sodomize an entire airliner...

Perhaps that is the motive.

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Steve Matz
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 672
From: Billings, Montana, USA
Registered: Sep 2003

posted 03-18-2014 03:45 AM

Even if the Plane got spotted by Radar doesn't mean anything. If these People had any type Nuclear Device on Board then shooting it down would still cause Massive Destruction. The Bomb dropped on Hiroshima(little Boy) was U235 Uranium which Countries like IRAN,North Korea,etc.already have. The Altitude that Little Boy Detonated was around 2000ft.A firecracker by today's Weapon's at only around 16 Kilotons look how many people were killed in the Original Detonation. Plus the 1000's later that died from Radiation Poisoning and lingering wounds.

I would be plenty worried if I were Joint Chiefs at the Pentagon. If these people were intelligent enough to be able to disable all forms of communication on a sophisticated Jet like this then they have People Knowledgable about Nuclear Fission.

Putting together a Guntype device like Little Boy doesn't need a Nuclear Physicist. All you need is weapons grade Uranium either U235 OR 238. They don't need Plutonium to make something that's bigger than what they dropped on Hiroshima.the amount of Fissonable material that was responsible for detonating that Bomb would fit in a small pill bottle with room to Spare.

They better hope this Plane Crashed in the Ocean because what could be coming down the line will make 9/11 look like a Lady Finger...

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-18-2014 08:55 AM

I just don't get all of the terrorism/comspiracy theories here.

The simplest and most logical explanation seems to be that something went wrong on the plane (fire? depressurization?) that incapacitated the passengers and pilots fairly quickly, and that the plane continued to fly with its automated systems until it either ran out of fuel or the automation failed.

The chances of being able to land a plane of that size and then hide it from the entire world for any length of time are just so small as to be hardly worth considering until/unless the (much) more likely explanation is disproven. Even if it were possible to land and hide the plane, it would still need to be serviced and refueled (by who?) if it were to be used in some sort of nefarious capacity. Again, the chances of that happening without someone finding out about it are fairly remote.

One thing that I don't fully understand: train locomotives have a dead-man's switch that needs to be pressed periodically in order to keep the train from automatically stopping to avoid the accidents that would result if the engineer became incapacitated. Do aircraft autopilot systems have this sort of system? Should they? An argument could be made that the aircraft should send a distress signal or possibly even land itself (if so equipped) if the crew were to become incapacitated. Or would this cause more problems that it would solve? One difference is that a train typically has one engineer and a conductor, while aircraft typically have two pilots and (on some aircraft) a flight engineer, so there is a built-in failsafe mechanism that does not exist on trains.

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Paul Mayer
Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under!

Posts: 3836
From: Albuquerque, NM
Registered: Feb 2000

posted 03-18-2014 10:22 AM

I know of no autopilot that has something like the "dead man" pedal on a locomotive, but...

Autopilots can be disconnected by simply applying pressure on the yoke or control column - a few pounds of hand pressure applied against the autopilot's input forces will cause a disconnect. This can happen if/when the aircraft flies in turbulent air on autopilot - the autopilot will disconnect if it has to make large or rapid pitch trim or engine power changes. There are both audio and visual warnings issued when the autopilot disconnects - most pilot operating handbooks call for autopilots to be disconnected when flying in moderate or greater turbulence. So, not the same as a dead man switch.

In a jet the manual input control forces needed to fly the aircraft can quickly build up beyond the physical strength of one or two pilots, hence the need for quick autopilot disconnects.

With the level of automation available in today's jet transports, it is possible to fly a completely automated flight once the aircraft is in the air (still have to have a human drive the aircraft from the gate to the runway, set the takeoff power, and raise the landing gear and flaps). Navigation for the entire route is entered in the FMS beforehand, which takes care of tuning the nav radios and setting the desired headings and altitudes. Still need a human for the end of the trip though, for lowering the landing gear and flaps - the brakes and spoilers can be set for automated operation.

Autoland due to crew incapacitation? It is possible on the latest jet transports (still need a human to at least lower the landing gear though), but keeping all that automation serviced to the point where it could be used for such a very rare possibility would be very expensive. Heck, even something as simple as a movie theater can be automated to that extent, but not without a lot of additional expense - most theater operators would not do it. Aircraft operators face the same kinds of expenses and complications - it's still cheaper to have human crews.

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 03-18-2014 10:38 AM

quote: Steve Matz
Putting together a Guntype device like Little Boy doesn't need a Nuclear Physicist. All you need is weapons grade Uranium either U235 OR 238.

If we really want to get into conspiracy theories, that was the basic premise of the 1980s Cold War novel The Fourth Protocol, in which Russian agents smuggle the components of a crude nuke into England, assemble them and try to detonate it near a US air base in Suffolk. Their aim was to try to make it look lke an accident for which the (right-wing, Conservative) government would take the blame and lose a forthcoming election to an extreme left Labour party, which would then turn the UK effectively into a Soviet satellite. The scary thing when the book came out was that several nuclear physicists who were interviewed about it believed that the science was essentially non-fiction. You would need some pretty esoteric and difficult-to-find ingredients (not just the fissile material, but the sphere and gun components would need rare metals to make), but once those components exist, then basically, if you're able to assemble a piece of flatpack Ikea furniture, you're able to assemble one of these nukes. The "fourth protocol" of the title was a clause in a top secret treaty between the Cold War powers in which they all agreed not to construct or deploy such a device (one that could be smuggled undetected across international borders and then assembled clandestinely).

quote: Paul Mayer
Autoland due to crew incapacitation? It is possible on the latest jet transports (still need a human to at least lower the landing gear though), but keeping all that automation serviced to the point where it could be used for such a very rare possibility would be very expensive.

And also, such a system would actually introduce security risks that currently don't exist, I'd have thought. We've heard all sorts of paranoid tinfoil hattery over the last few days about how a passenger might have hijacked the plane by hacking into the seatback TV system, or the CIA might have hijacked it by hacking the flight manamgement system wirelessly from an AWACS plane. AFAIK (and Paul, please correct me if I'm wrong), this is total BS, because the communications infrastructure through which such a hacking attempt would have to be routed simply don't exist. There is no data connection between the entertainment system and those which operate the plane's control surfaces, and no wireless data receiver on the FMC. The only way you can input anything to it is to physically be present in the cockpit and press buttons on it.

If you did introduce a system whereby an airliner could be radio controlled from the ground or another aircraft - and especially if such a system allowed this to be done against the pilots' wills - then the possibility at least exists that this system could be compromised and taken over by bad guys. If it doesn't exist, it can't.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-18-2014 11:23 AM

quote: Paul Mayer
(still need a human to at least lower the landing gear though)

I'm just curious, why does a human have to handle the landing gear when so much else can be automated? I would think they'd be able to build something in to make the landing gear deploy or stow automatically.

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Terry Lynn-Stevens
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1081
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2012

posted 03-18-2014 11:59 AM

quote: Scott Norwood
The simplest and most logical explanation seems to be that something went wrong on the plane (fire? depressurization?) that incapacitated the passengers and pilots fairly quickly, and that the plane continued to fly with its automated systems until it either ran out of fuel or the automation failed.

So what explains the tracking system being turned off then 14 minutes later the automated diagnostics turns off? And the plane flew for 7 hours after the tracking system was turned off yet nobody can find it on their radar?

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Rick Raskin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1100
From: Manassas Virginia
Registered: Jan 2003

posted 03-18-2014 12:13 PM

I've been wondering why is it even possible to disable the position transponder? Is there any valid reason it shouldn't be on all the time?

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Frank Cox
Film God

Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011

posted 03-18-2014 12:44 PM

The transponder can apparently interfere with radios/radars/whatever when the plane is parked at an airport.

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-18-2014 01:14 PM

quote: Terry Lynn-Stevens
So what explains the tracking system being turned off then 14 minutes later the automated diagnostics turns off? And the plane flew for 7 hours after the tracking system was turned off yet nobody can find it on their radar?

Electrical problem, maybe?

Obviously, I don't know any more than anyone else about what actually happened, but the overly complicated conspiracy theories are getting annoying when simpler and more plausable explanations exist.

And I wasn't advocating remote-control capability for aircraft...just an autopilot that is capable of determining when the pilots are incapacitated and either sending an alert to the ground or landing the plane safely without the need for human intervention. If nothing else, it might save some lives on the ground by preventing a crash, even if the plane has to land on a runway with the landing gear up (can a large jet land with flaps up, though?). Presumably, this idea has been considered and rejected by people who are smarter than I, although I am curious as to why.

Interesting how turbulance could disable the autopilot on its own, though. That might negate the value of the above autopilot modification.

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