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Sharp Changes in Altitude and Course After Jet Lost Contact
NYT ^ | 3/14/2014 | MICHAEL FORSYTHE and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

Posted on 03/14/2014 4:42:45 PM PDT by BuckeyeTexan

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To: BuckeyeTexan
"What would happen to a 777 if, attempted to fly the plane well beyond its 43,100 foot max service ceiling? "

Its very simple, it no longer have enough air flowing over the wings creating lift, and the airplane will stall. Stall is the industry term for when a plane is not developing enough lift.

With that much fuel on board and admittedly not a full payload of passengers, nonetheless, AND in this part of the world temperatures well above average, the airplane would have stalled immediately if not within 90 seconds, depending upon alot of conditions

What happens next, depends upon again, alot of conditions. The characteristics of a particular design of an airplane and immediate reaction of the pilots. A wing will dip, ( first wing to stall) nose will pitch forward)

Having not flown a 777, can not say with full certainty, but common to every airplane the autopilot will automatically disengage. Alot of crap is going on in that moment. None of it good. All bad

What a moronic suggestion by Nance. I can decompressurize an airplane at 35,000 feet and accomplish the same. Ok instead of 13 seconds, passengers might have 30 seconds. I forgot the exact time guidance.

In either case, oxygen masks drop. Giving passengers 15 minutes of oxygen. Again because i would never ever think about it, am pretty certain (99.9%) oxygen masks can NOT be disabled.

21 posted on 03/14/2014 5:14:21 PM PDT by saywhatagain
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To: BuckeyeTexan

Yeah because its a HUGE mystery, if this was a hijacking, who was behind it, because if they did it once they can do it again


22 posted on 03/14/2014 5:18:01 PM PDT by Sarah Barracuda
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To: SE Mom

Go back to those two Iranians who used stolen passports, I Never believed for one second they were “seeking asylum”


23 posted on 03/14/2014 5:22:41 PM PDT by Sarah Barracuda
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To: BuckeyeTexan

Still don’t think it was the pilots.

Still standing on my limb :)

I suspect there was a fight in the cockpit though.

I also think it was shot down. It strikes me that the Malaysian government seems totally uncoordinated, and very guarded, about what they are releasing. This often happens when lies are not yet coordinated.

I suspect it was hijacked, the two friendly Malaysian pilots killed or incapacitated with the rest of the flight crew and passengers, and then once some government discovered what was happening, they nailed that sucker with a A2A missile.

I would guess after seeing a rapid ascent to 45000 ft+, they figured all the passengers were dead anyway, may as well take it out.


24 posted on 03/14/2014 5:32:30 PM PDT by Aqua225 (Realist)
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To: gaijin
Non-minaturized nukes are heavy, and a re-painted civvy a/c like the 777 will make a perfect delivery platform at 3,000 feet on a clear day at 10:00 am over a major city,

Why not just buy a used commercial aircraft on the open market?

25 posted on 03/14/2014 5:34:02 PM PDT by fso301
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To: saywhatagain

I seriously doubt there are many systems in a aircraft that can’t be disabled. The oxygen system is definitely a system that would have a off switch. You wouldn’t want it deploying if there was a fire in the cabin. It would be like pouring gasoline on a match, even with the relatively low flow of the masks included on planes.


26 posted on 03/14/2014 5:35:36 PM PDT by Aqua225 (Realist)
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To: fso301
Why not just buy a used commercial aircraft on the open market?

Because they do not have $280 million for a 777, but did somehow get a nuke.

27 posted on 03/14/2014 5:40:59 PM PDT by gaijin
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To: saywhatagain

28 posted on 03/14/2014 5:41:12 PM PDT by Myrddin
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To: BuckeyeTexan
I should have finished the whole scenario

In this case, radar shows a climb to 45,000. At some point the airplane will stall due to not enough airflow over the wings. A wing dips and nose pitches forward

A "good" pilot can recover at that altitude within 2 to 3 thousand feet. In the simulator almost all pilots can recover before losing 10,000 feet. That would be considered a failure of this recovery.

According to the radar, it shows a loss of 25,000 feet. Soooooo alot of other crap is going on. But they apparently recover. Or Did they?

I have been involved in only two accident investigations. In both cases, we saw anomalies in the Air Traffic control radar data. Meaning it can have a burst of inaccurate data. But the whole body of information usually smoothes out the anomalies.

Did the altitude changes occur before the transponder was no longer working. Hmmmmm according to reports all is normal until the point that the transponder is no longer working.

If the altitude changes occurred AFTER the transponder was no longer working, they are all full of crap, because they would not know with any certainty altitude heights.

29 posted on 03/14/2014 5:42:16 PM PDT by saywhatagain
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To: fso301
Why not just buy a used commercial aircraft on the open market?

Because all this costs is a few plane tickets and flight training? Kind of like the 9/11 hijackings? Think shoestring budget.

30 posted on 03/14/2014 5:44:13 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)
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To: Myrddin

Thank you. I was pretty close. I will have to remember next time i go to recurrent


31 posted on 03/14/2014 5:44:49 PM PDT by saywhatagain
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To: gaijin; Zhang Fei
Because they do not have $280 million for a 777, but did somehow get a nuke.

Used airliners are a lot less than that.

32 posted on 03/14/2014 5:47:55 PM PDT by fso301
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To: BuckeyeTexan

The aircraft reached the edge of the stratosphere and is now floating in space. A little mangled, but nonetheless.


33 posted on 03/14/2014 5:49:31 PM PDT by Obama_Is_A_Feminist
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To: Zhang Fei

Yeah, right.. “Uhhhh, we’re Al Qaeda and we’d like to buy one of your 777’s and put our black flag logo on the tail, please?” /s Sheesh!


34 posted on 03/14/2014 5:51:34 PM PDT by Obama_Is_A_Feminist
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To: fso301
Why not just buy a used commercial aircraft on the open market?

In this listing, the cheapest price for a used 737 is $750K. I have no idea if these prices are for planes in flyable condition, but the odds are some maintenance work would be necessary, which should bring the fly away price well over $1m. Compared to that, two plane tickets are peanuts. I've left out the flight training as an incremental expense, because they need that regardless of how they acquire the plane.

35 posted on 03/14/2014 5:51:45 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)
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To: gaijin

How about this theory. Plane takes off as it normally would. Plane gets to altitude and zap. All of a sudden radios go out. No one notices anything from the cabin. However in the cockpit, pilot and co-pilot realize something isn’t right.

They decide it is best to turn around. 15 minutes later there is another zap and the other radios go out as well as the black boxes. Also, every cell phone is zapped. The pilots, disoriented at 35,000 ft with a plane load of now panicked passengers start looking for land. Finally there is one more zap and the engines and hydraulics die.

The plane nose dives and heads for the ocean.

At the Whitehouse, a message is conveyed to both the Russians and Chinese. The message simply reads, “satellite test was successful.”


36 posted on 03/14/2014 5:52:37 PM PDT by EQAndyBuzz (Insurgent Conservative)
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To: Aqua225
Well you can keep doubting.

Would you like for me to explain the oxygen system for the passenger or would it be easier for you to look it up?

Hint, there are NO oxygen bottles and for that matter NO oxygen carried on board the airplane for the passengers.. Depending on type of aircraft One or Two bottles for cockpit crew. There are portable oxygen bottles on board. 777 may have a dozen. Not sure the exact amount. Can be used between 15 and 30 minutes each depending upon the flow you select

Wow, I bet that blows your mind.

Hint. They are call oxygen GENERATORS. Ya cant turn them off. I dont want to have to explain. Just got to google type in "oxygen generator" + airplane. Am sure you can read all about it

37 posted on 03/14/2014 5:53:41 PM PDT by saywhatagain
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To: Aqua225

” It strikes me that the Malaysian government seems totally uncoordinated, and very guarded, about what they are releasing. This often happens when lies are not yet coordinated.”

It also happens when you’ve got an unsophisticated third-world-level government that gets blindsided by a crisis it is not prepared to handle, and doesn’t want to look bad on the world stage.


38 posted on 03/14/2014 5:54:01 PM PDT by PLMerite
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To: Zhang Fei
Compared to that, two plane tickets are peanuts.

True. But all the speculation is that the plane would carry a nuke. If someone has the wherewithal to acquire a nuke, they can also get a plane to deliver it.

39 posted on 03/14/2014 5:56:32 PM PDT by fso301
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To: saywhatagain

I don’t think a B777 will stall 45,000. Sure, you can stall it deliberately.

Service ceiling is defined as the maximum altitude at which and aircraft can maintain a climb of fifty feet per minute.

The chief pilot in my company is a brilliant man. He has thousands of hours in the 757, 767 and 777 with a major airline before being forced to retire due to age. I checked him out in a certain corporate jet. Out company acquired another jet of that make it model, but it had some very minor differences, one of them being service ceiling. The jet I checked him on had a ceiling of FL450. This other aircraft had a ceiling of FL410.

I didn’t make him do a complete new check out in the new aircraft, but I did discuss the difference of service ceilings. He came back from his first trip in the new aircraft and declared that the new airplane was a real dog at FL430. I reminded him that it’s ceiling was FL410. That’s the only mistake I’ve ever seen him make. Again, he is a wonderful pilot.


40 posted on 03/14/2014 5:57:33 PM PDT by CFIIIMEIATP737
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