I happen to agree with you that many of the newspaper headlines, journalist choose to
emphasize the more sensational aspects of the story, in order to sell more newspapers.
However, readers must also be diligent to evaluate the statements made by anonymous sources.
If you think an experienced pilot should be disregarded because he is titled a "talking head",
then what title do you ascribe to the opinions of anonymous Websleuths posters have ?
Unfortunately we are unaware whether the opinions stated here,
come from a place of education & experience ... or elsewhere.
In order to counteract this disadvantage, as I understand it, Websleuths
has a policy that a poster should back up their statements with references.
Such a policy aids other posters in evaluating the veracity of the statements made.
This sounds to me like a very tentative statment ...
Can you please provide a reference that backs up your supposition ?
On the other hand, I DID provide a reference in message #96 here,
where a retired pilot with many years of experience at Malaysia airlines
claimed that in order to function properly, the ELT required ACARS.
Since I am unaware of your personal background, it would be most helpfull
if you could please provide another reference from an experienced individual,
towards clarifing if there is a problem with the claim made by THIS pilot.
I have NOT read anyone state that they think that MH370 hard landed on top of the
Indian Ocean intact & remained floating. So I am confused at to why you bring up this
unlikely possibility ??? Everything I have read says that it sank under the water.
ACARS stands for "Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System".
If you suppose that ELT is not using ACARS, then can you please tell me
which communications system, an ELT uses to broadcast the locater frequency ?
I think you have misunderstood the workings of the Rolls Royce engine health maintenance PLANS.
They offer more than one option. ALL commercial planes have engines monitored automatically through ACARS.
IF & ONLY IF the airlines decides to pay extra for the advanced engine health maintenance plan
THEN Rolls Royce would monitor further ... would that be through SATCOM ???
In message #43 here I provided an MSM reference saying that Malaysian Airlines divulged that they
did NOT pay the required subscription fee for the advanced engine health maintenance plan ...
Can you please provide a reference for this statement ?
I have NEVER read that SATCOM was disabled !
I personally think ACARS & SATCOM are 2 different systems.
The pilot has access to ACARS ... but please enlighten me if a pilot has access to SATCOM.
My reading has indicated that SATCOM is located in a separate computer on top of the plane.
In my opinion, this statement reflects a misunderstanding about which part
of the Inmarsat data is FACT & which part of the Inmarsat data is THEORY.
One can argue about the theoretical location of the plane because that is questionable,
BUT the fact that the handshakes occurred is a reality.
Excluding location, can you please explain EXACTLY what you think is theory
about the satellite communicating with an airborne MH370 at these UTC times below
which were reflected in 2 separate computers (Inmarsat & ground station) ...
2014/03/7 @18:40:56.354 IOR-3730-21000 IOR 305 6 C-Channel RX 0x30 -
Call Progress - Channel Release 90 19:41 - Handshake Request, with response take-off
2014/03/7 @19:41:02.906 IOR-R1200-0-36ED IOR 305 4 R-Channel RX 0x15 -
Log-on/Log-off Acknowledge 111 11500 20:41 - Handshake Request, with response
2014/03/7 @20:41:04.904 IOR-R1200-0-36ED IOR 305 4 R-Channel RX 0x15 -
Log-on/Log-off Acknowledge 141 11740 21.41 - Handshake Request, with response
2014/03/7 @21:41:26.905 IOR-R1200-0-36ED IOR 305 4 R-Channel RX 0x15 -
Log-on/Log-off Acknowledge 168 12780 22:41 - Handshake Request, with response
2014/03/8 @00:10:59.928 IOR-R1200-0-36ED IOR 305 4 R-Channel RX 0x15 -
Log-on/Log-off Acknowledge 252 18040 00:19:29 -
Log-On Request (reported as a Partial Handshake), initiated from the aircraft terminal
2014/03/8 @00:19:29.416 IOR-R600-0-36F8 IOR 305 10 R-Channel RX 0x10 -
Log-on Request (ISU)/Log-on Flight Information (SSU) 182 23000
2014/03/8 @00:19:37.443 IOR-R1200-0-36F6 IOR 305 10 R-Channel RX 0x15 -
Log-on/Log-off Acknowledge -2 49660
This fact means that MH370 was STILL flying at 8am MYT. The only part logical people
can argue about, is the theory about WHERE the plane went down AFTER that time.
Rhyolite has mentioned that Inmarsat theory could be affected by the heat of a fire.
In my personal opinion, heat would alter the location by hundreds of miles,
but not thousands of mile ... however that is debatable.
So in summary, a plane going down at 8am MYT in the Maldives or Andaman Islands
remains a small possibility ... but a plane going down anywhere at 3am MYT
is NOT a possibility given the satellite evidence in existence at 8am MYT.
My opinions only, no facts here:
First, my most recent post that you are citing here was not linked to anyone's prior comments, so obviously I am not questioning any specific sources, including yours. But, I will address your more relevant questions, so you can move forward in this most interesting case.
ELT's do have nothing to do with aircraft-enabled ACARS/SATCOM. An ELT is a stand-alone device with its own battery and its own transmitter. Modern versions transmit to six COSPAS-SARSAT satellites and do not require payment, but registration is required. A Supercub in Alaska or a 12 foot boat on a lake can have an ELT. I myself could purchase and carry an ELT on my person, in case I ever jumped off a tall building! Even an aircraft without ANY power can possess perfectly-working ELT's (e.g.
http://eandt.theiet.org/magazine/2014/03/flight-mh370-emergency.cfm). The ELT, if properly updated to transmit at 406 Mhz and properly designed, signals direct to satellite upon hard impact OR via deliberate activation by the owner. In my personal opinion, the lack of ELT signals for the Air France 447 crash is because the plane smashed into the ocean and sank immediately. An ELT is designed only to work ABOVE the waterline. I am dismayed about how many sites confuse the ELTs with the submarine sonar pingers on the black boxes. They have nothing to do with each other! It is not clear to me if MH-370 had ELT's that transmitted on 406 Mhz (this is important!). One of the interesting possibilities is that the four ELT's on MH-370 were not updated and lacked the ability to transmit at 406 Mhz. This could be the skeleton in the closet. It is up to the officials to clarify this question. If they have already, and I have not seen it, I apologize. Until then, "The Silence of the ELTs" remains a conundrum.
Regarding how MH-370 landed, NO attributable debris has been found on any ocean or beach in the world. I have previously posted on this thread about the significant quantity of buoyant debris from disintegrative ocean crashes such as Air France 447. This suggests to the layperson, if MH 370 had an ocean crash, that the landing did not cause the aircraft to disintegrate. Whether MH-370 landed in the middle of the choppy Indian Ocean in complete darkness or with faint daylight is not important. Of course, it would sink eventually. BUT, if it stayed afloat whole for one minute, the four ELT's aboard should have been singing like canaries to satellites with exact location to a meter. The ELT's possess no bias; they simply do what they are designed to do. And the deficiencies of ELTs have been considerably exaggerated by the talking heads.
ACARS is the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System. It utilizes both VHF and SATCOM (e.g.
http://theaviationist.com/2014/03/16/satcom-acars-explained/). When a plane is close to base, it can transmit via VHF to ground stations, which can then be uploaded to Boeing, Rolls Royce, etc. on the internet. When a plane is too far from base for line-of-sight VHF communication, it can use SATCOM to transmit directly. An airline can subscribe to full-health monitoring OR they can subscribe to engine-health monitoring only (as with MH-370, check my previous url link above). Even if Malaysian Airlines did not subscribe to real-time full aircraft monitoring with Boeing, remember that two engine-health messages WERE sent to Rolls-Royce in Great Britain (
http://www.newscientist.com/article...ne-sent-out-engine-data-before-vanishing.html), shortly before MH-370 disappeared from transponder radar. Malaysia Airlines MUST have been subscribed to SOME service. I assume that these messages to Rolls-Royce were not free? If they were free, I am interested in transferring my cell phone service to those guys.
One theory is that someone in the cockpit disabled VHF, SATCOM, and the radar transponder. Easy-peasy, right? Wrong. If SATCOM was shut down, how did the plane continue to be able to handshake with a satellite every hour? In principle, SATCOM is either completely disabled or completely enabled. And do not forget, some talking heads disagree whether it is even possible to shut down VHF and SATCOM from the cockpit. Is there some way to manually turn off just the engine health monitoring portion of SATCOM, yet allow the plane to still freely handshake with satellites? There darn well better be, because no engine health messages were sent to Rolls-Royce in Great Britain from MH-370 after the transponder quit working. Very odd, don't you think?
Now I will address the last portion of your post, where you provide the timing of the Inmarsat pings. Let us pretend that the terrorist masterminds figured out how to turn off SATCOM on MH-370, but failed to recognize that it was not really turned off and still working perfectly for Inmarsat handshakes (but the Rolls-Royce engines were somehow selectively silenced?). The Inmarsat pings are fairly-hard evidence (but watch out for spoofs!) and could be reasonably considered fact by some scientists, leading to a hypothesis/theory. I do not dispute this. Regarding any interpretation of where the pings originated from- these plane-to-satellite handshakes DO NOT yield latitude-longitude coordinates. These pings have nothing to do with GPS. The error range (limited by complete guesses as to the hourly velocity of MH-370, doppler frequency effects, etc.) is huge. But this is not a condemnation of any theorists. It just means that IF MH 370, as predicted, sank in the southern Indian Ocean, it could take years or longer to find it, because of the very large error range.
Since we may have years, or maybe even decades to wait for a solution in the southern Indian Ocean, I would like to see two guys in a row-boat towing a hundred-dollar underwater camera in the Gulf of Thailand, directly under where MH 370 disappeared and northward where the slicks and flotsam were found. The Gulf of Thailand is a VERY SHALLOW sea. It is not necessarily the entire plane that you are looking for here- rather some single submerged piece of relevant evidence. If this fails, these two guys could drag their row-boat across the peninsula to the easternmost Strait of Malacca and continue their search there.
Thanks for the fun and interesting questions 2Rose! I hope that I have helped you in some small way regarding them.
Sleuth On!
