MH370 - Missing
 

Sepang, 8 March 2014: Malaysia Airlines confirms that flight MH370 has lost contact with Subang Air Traffic Control at 2.40am, today (8 March 2014).

Flight MH370, operated on the B777-200 aircraft, departed Kuala Lumpur at 12.41am on 8 March 2014. MH370 was expected to land in Beijing at 6.30am the same day. The flight was carrying a total number of 227 passengers (including 2 infants)..., 12 crew members.

Malaysia Airlines is currently working with the authorities who have activated their Search and Rescue team to locate the aircraft.

The airline will provide regular updates on the situation. Meanwhile, the public may contact +603 7884 1234 for further info.

FlightAware only showing the aircraft tracking out to the northeast across the Malay Peninsula. The statement on the Mayalsian Facebook page was made at 0724 MYT, which is an hour and a half after the aircraft should have landed in Beijing.

http://www.16right.com/MessageBoard/...20140309 A.jpg

Aircraft is 9M-MRO

Three screen grabs from FR24 -

1. The same aircraft operating the same flight 24 hours before, shown in the cruise FL370 all the way to Vietnam.
http://s29.postimg.org/m20uzl4zb/MAS3.png

2. The aircraft last night in cruise at FL350, then it just drops to 0 feet just off the coast.
http://s11.postimg.org/ntwl8v9cz/MAS1.png
http://s30.postimg.org/9avvkk29d/MAS2.png

Two things in the MAS statement contradict each other.

"lost contact with Subang Air Traffic Control at 2.40am"

By 2.40 am the aircraft would have been 2 hours into flight and well north of Malaysian airspace (which ends close to where the aircraft looks to have gone down)

And FR24 says that it has 'arrived' in Beijing!!!

Sad news. 2 hours out would have it close to the Vietnam coast I would think.

FlightAware log ..

http://www.16right.com/MessageBoard/...20140309 B.jpg

http://malaysiandigest.com/frontpage...t-missing.html


Here's hoping.

Reports are that 7 Australians and 2 New Zealanders are amongst the pax list

Latest, doesn't look good.

http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel...-1226848860442

S&R have been activated

http://www.china.org.cn/world/2014-0...t_31714878.htm

Signal from a/c has been detected.

If this aircraft is lost it would be the 3rd B777 loss and 1st B777 in-flight loss with:

1. BA landed short at Heathrow due to fuel starvation
2. HL landed short SFO due to flight crew issues

Hi Greg

9M-MRO will be the fourth hull B777 hull loss after BA, Asiana and

Egyptair SU-GBP B777-266ER c/n 28423 l/n 0071 FF 05/05/97 DD
23/05/97 written off on 29 Jul 2011 at Cairo airport after a cockpit fire on
the ground.

Cheers

Bob

ABCNews24 is currently running live reports.

ABC site has a live blog with updates:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-0...issing/5308006

Thanks, Bob

Still seems to be the 1st B777 in-flight loss

9M-MRO B7772H6ER (C/n 28420 L/n 404) Hex 75008F Rolls Royce Trent 800 Delivered 31/05/2002

9/08/2012 Aviation Safety Network : A taxiing Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 passenger plane (9M-MRO),
flight MH389, contaced the tail of a China Eastern Airlines A340 plane, B-6050, waiting on the
taxiway at Pudong International Airport.No one was injured.

By Justin Dear and (AFP)
http://www.jetphotos.net/img/4/0/0/8...9609800_tb.jpg
9M-MRO departing Amsterdam
Schiphol Airport 12/01/2014
Photographer Freek Blokzijl

Still nothing found.

According to :

http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-co...plane-1.502767

"MAS' Executive, Media Relations and Strategic Communications Malini Saudranrajan said the last known position of the aircraft was 065515 North (longitude) and 1033443 East (latitude)".

Which is much closer to the Malaysian Coast than to Vietnam.

You have to wonder though, it was supposed to be about 2 hours out of KLIA and that location would be less than 1 hour out. Seems to be lots of confusion as to just where and when it was last reported at.

More regarding search efforts:

http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-co...coast-1.502464

Go to the bottom of the story and click on page 2.

Note: The different locations, Sth China Sea or Gulf of Thailand.

quite concerning to know that two of the passengers on the plane were traveling on stolen passports..The Austrian & Italian were actually never on the flight.

From Google News ...

Disappointing that it has taken so long to locate the aircraft in this busy airspace.

Malaysia are best equipped to support the sea search, with 12 EC725s helicopters, having a 723nm range and just over 6 hours endurance. They also have C-130 aircraft employed in the search, however it will take some time to deploy these assets to the search area.

Vietnam only has one Antonov An-28 and four Beriev Be-12 seaplanes.

• Two passengers travelling on stolen passports could suggest a hijacking, although physical security at the airport, and on the aircraft, should make this difficult. There have been no confirmed reports of the aircraft landing at any other airport. The recent hijacking of an Ethiopian B767 was by the co-pilot, not a passenger.

• Previous wing tip damage from an accident back in 2012 should not be related.

• Fuel system icing issues with the B777 Trent 800 powerplants, similar to the British Airways accident back in 2008, is a potential cause, although Rolls Royce developed a fix to prevent the problem recurring.

Some odd aspects
 

The two travelling on false passports, combined with the FR plot showing that although altitude reduced to zero, speed remained almost constant, does make this disappearance a little more troubling at this early stage.

But analogies with AF447 are also there. Will be interesting to see what telemetry was sent in the moments before the a/c disappeared.

you would think that if someone's passport was stolen last year then this would alert passport controls in all countries to be extra vigilant when a passenger shows up with that passport , also the passport number should show up as stolen once scanned . And once the genuine owner of the passport has their passport re-issued they would need to provide additional proof of id each time checking in and going through security if needed ,
An italian and an Austrian both had their passports stolen while in Thailand last year ? ( according to BBC ) sounds a bit odd , I travelled through Thailand / Singapore and Malaysia last year , and in my opinion the only weak link was thailand .... Singapore and Malaysia are very strict with passport controls and its hard to believe in this day and age that people still get away with travelling on false passports . if that is indeed what has happened :confused:

Now the FBI is involved
 

Ostensibly on the grounds that US citizens were on the aircraft, but I'm not sure the FBI gets involved as a matter of course ... :confused:

Crickey Update:

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalk...ion-imprecise/

Looks like an AF447 scenario.

Does the B777 has telemetry output similar to the A330/380 etc.

Any ACARS?
 

As with AF447, the ACARS telemetry could give us vital clues. Maybe MAS doesn't want to share it at this stage ... ?

A couple of ways it's different to AF447 - no reports of significant weather in the area, a very experienced crew at the controls (presumably) and no reports of telemetry (which was revealed hours after AF447 was confirmed missing).

The other thing I find bizarre is that despite good ADS and ATC radar coverage (reportedly) there have only been unconfirmed reports of a rapid descent - you'd think even from 35,000ft if the aircraft was falling in a single piece they would have had a couple of radar returns in that time?

Thankfully the Gulf of Thailand is relatively shallow so it should make recovery of the wreckage somewhat easier than AF447.

I'd imagine they would need an invite from the lead nation, who ever that may end up being. I can't imagine there is an jurisdictional nexus that allows the FBI to get involved simply because Americans were on board.

Cheers

M

There could not have been any fuel issues with the aircraft, as it would have flown for quite some time regardless, and communications would have been received from the pilot.

Something sudden and catastrophic has happened which prevented time for any communications from the pilots.

Something else to be considered would be the aircraft having been overpowered, and flown into the sea intentionally, also explaining the no communications.

We will find out...

Why didn't Vietnam/Chinese ATC raise an alert when the aircraft:

* failed to report at way points
* could no longer be seen on radar

My thoughts are to the victims and families.

Just wondering in today's technology, wouldn't we should be able to find the black box signal as it will emit wavebands to allow search authorities to locate the plane?

The depth of either Gulf of Thailand or South China Sea should not be too deep than an ocean that it should facilitate the search easily.

Thoughts?

Replying to one of the possible thoughts on the cause, could the plane suffered something similar but more violent explosion than QF30 that potentially destroys the black box and disintegration of the plane?

They do, but you need to be reasonably close to start with.

Boeing Technical Advisors and NTSB investigators are on their way to the area, so they will be ready to assist once the location of the aircraft has been established.

Pitot freezing?
 

Would pitot freezing explain altitude going from 37,000 to 0 with no speed reduction? It seems more likely than controlled flight into the sea? Or perhaps there were fumes of some kind and the crew were overcome? Or an undetected hypoxia event?

The lack of flotsam and jetsam suggests (to me anyway) that the a/c did not disintegrate at high altitude and is more likely to have hit in one piece, similar to AF447. Wing separation pre-impact might explain distance between fuel slick locations.

Also now seems that contact was lost only 40 minutes out of KL but MAS was not told because no one wanted to raise a false alarm until all equipment malfunction explanations had been eliminated. I'd have thought immediate contact with MAS should have occurred so they could at least try ACARS or other alternative means of contact.

Really just curiouser and curiouser ... :confused:

Sadly I think this may be a case of "Crew Misadventure" I have the gut feeling it is, but I am no expert on these matters, what saddens me is I have catered that and 16 other Malaysia 777.200's and crews generally were really nice, perhaps I met the pilots at some stage in 3.5 years here in Adelaide. I do hope the aircraft is found to bring closure to the grieving families. Tragic start to 2014 after really low fatality rates in aviation.

I think the final altitude of 0ft on FR24 is not correct. It means the aircraft would have had to transmit this altitude and an ADS-B receiver would have had to receive it. But as you know the distance over which ADS-B signals can be received depend on line-of-sight connection and at 0ft this line of sight is not really long.
If this incident was similar to AF447 and the plane would have dropped, it would still have transmitted ADS-B messages that show a change in speed or altitude. So this seems very unlikely to me.
The only two reasons I can think of that cause a plane to not transmit any more signals are that the transponder has been switched off intentionally or an explosion that destroyed at least the transponder and maybe the entire plane.

The latest reports that the aircraft might have turned after it stopped reporting its position may indicate an intentionally switched off transponder, maybe by a hijacker.

How on earth would a hijacker even get into the flight deck? The plane was aloft not more than an hour, and the pilots would've been able to communicate the situation if someone was trying to access the flight deck. I don't know, but terrorism by entering the flight deck doesn't seem plausible unless it was carried out by the flight crew itself.

What surprises me is that no wreckage has been located. No lifejackets, no baggage, no aircraft bits, nothing but an oil slick. If the aircraft was flown into the water, or it disintegrated above the water, then surely there should be more than just an oil slick as evidence?

And surely there were fishing vessels out that night that might have seen or heard something? Weather reports suggested that conditions were pretty good. A B777 is hardly a small thing to hide!!!

But we can speculate all we like, even hypothesise til the cows come home if it makes us all feel better. They'll find it sooner or later, and then we'll get the real answers we're all looking for.

Montague S, I totally agree with you.
So the only options are that one of the people on the flight deck actually switched the transponder of to hijack the plane (like it recently happend).
Or there was an explosion. This might have been either a terrorist attack or some non-terrorist reason.

Yes, that surprises me as well. If there was an explosion then there would have to be a lot of things floating around in the ocean.

Any other ideas why the transponder could have stopped transmitting?

The more you try to explain the disappearence of this flight the more mysterious it becomes.

BBC just wrote that the tickets that were purchased using the stolen passports were booked at the same time.

"The BBC has confirmed that a man falsely using an Italian passport and a man falsely using an Austrian passport purchased tickets at the same time, and were both booked on the same onward flight from Beijing to Europe on Saturday.

Both had purchased their tickets from China Southern Airlines, which shared the flight with Malaysia Airlines, and they had consecutive ticket numbers."

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26502843

How do you know they didn't?

Interesting development with the two passengers travelling on false passports. Why would they book on the same flight to Europe on Saturday, if they intended to hijack or destroy the aircraft. Maybe this is just illegal use of passports, and unrelated to the accident.