Posted on 03/14/2014 4:42:45 PM PDT by BuckeyeTexan
SEPANG, Malaysia — Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 experienced significant changes in altitude after it lost contact with ground control, and altered its course more than once as if still under the command of a pilot, American officials and others familiar with the investigation said Friday.
Radar signals recorded by the Malaysian military appear to show the missing airliner climbing to 45,000 feet, above the approved altitude limit for a Boeing 777-200, soon after it disappeared from civilian radar and made a sharp turn to the west, according to a preliminary assessment by a person familiar with the data.
(Excerpt) Read more at mobile.nytimes.com ...
Possible of course but HOW only two of them could accomplish this is unclear. By now, even without official information, in a mystery of this nature we should have leaks that one/both took flying lessons. ..or were seen to frequent radical mosques or their computers show questionable affiliations etc. But we don’t hear anything like that.
The questions I ask myself only lead to more questions ..that make NO SENSE.!!!
I’m not much for Nostrildamus but he did seem to possibly predict 9/11 and a nuclear attack on NYC.
http://www.prophet666.com/2009/07/nostradamus-new-york-city.html
Wow. And you are an instructor no less?
You got the 50 feet climb performance required to establish the service ceiling. But my friend many many other factors involved. Like weight and temperature. We have on average a plus 15 to 20 ISA here in the mid latitudes. Full of fuel, high temperatures. A sudden and dramatic drop after reaching 45,000 feet. Come on, you are better than that
Engines do stall above their service ceiling. Then the aircraft goes into glide mode.
Here’s an example of Pinnacle Airlines flight 3701.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinnacle_Airlines_Flight_3701
The two pilots were exploring the performance limits of the empty CRJ-200 on the ferry flight. The pilots decided to test the limits of the CRJ, and join the “410 Club,” referring to pilots who pushed CRJs to their maximum approved altitude of Flight Level 410 (41,000 feet).
The accident sequence started when the pilots performed several non-standard maneuvers at 15,000 feet, including a pitch-up at 2.3g (23 m/s²) that induced a stall warning. They set the autopilot to climb at 500 ft/min to FL410. This exceeded the manufacturer’s recommended climb rate at altitudes above FL380. In the attempt to reach FL410, the plane was pulled up at over 1.2g, and the angle of attack became excessive to maintain climb rate in the thinner upper atmosphere. After reaching FL410, the plane was cruising at 150 knots (280 km/h), barely above stall speed, and had over-stressed the engines.
The anti-stall devices activated while they were at altitude, but the pilots overrode the automatic nose-down that would increase speed to prevent stall. After four overrides, both engines experienced flameout and shut down. The plane then stalled, and the pilots recovered from the stall at FL380 while still having no engines. At that altitude, there were six airports within reach for a forced landing. This led the pilots to pitch nose down in an attempt to restart the engines, which requires a dive sharp enough to attain the required 300 kt for a windmill restart to make the blades in the turbines windmill at 10% N2 (turbine rotational speed). The captain did not take the necessary steps to ensure that the first officer achieved the 300-knot or greater airspeed required for the windmill engine restart procedure and then did not demonstrate command authority by taking control of the airplane and accelerating it to at least 300 knots.
However, the turbine blades expanded contacting the honeycomb labyrinth seals allowing the metal to scrape on each other when the engine overheated with zero core rotation. When the engine is shutdown at altitude, the core begins to cool and the stator, including the static Interstage Static Seal (ISS), contracts at a faster rate than the adjacent rotating parts in both the radial and axial direction because of its faster thermal time constant. The relative rate of cooling of the stator and rotor results in an alignment of the rotating seal knife-edges aft of the normal operating groove in the static seal. If the clearances are tight enough and the relative cooling rates are right, contact can occur between the static and rotating seal elements. The resulting stiction can temporarily prevent the rotor from turning when only the force of ram air is applied to the core. Air Turbine Starter (ATS) torque has been shown adequate to overcome this restriction (NTSB Accident Information Brief Update for October 29, 2004.) Thus, when the engine cooled, the assembly did not match anymore and the blades could not rotate freely. The crew ended the descent when they had reached 230 kt but neither engine core (N2) ever indicated any rotation during the entire descent. Since they were too high for an APU start, the ram air turbine (known as an “Air Driven Generator” on Bombardier products) was deployed to power the aircraft, and the crew donned oxygen masks as the cabin slowly depressurized due to loss of pressurization air from the engines.
The crew glided for several minutes. The crew then tried to restart engines using the APU at 13,000 ft. This was again unsuccessful. They then declared to Air Traffic Control (ATC) that they had a single engine flameout. At this point they had four diversion airports available to them. After continuing unsuccessfully to attempt to restart both the left engine (two times) and the right engine (two times) for over 14 minutes, while utilizing the emergency restart procedure, much altitude was lost. Despite their four auxiliary power unit-assisted engine restart attempts, the pilots were unable to restart the engines because their cores had locked. Without core rotation, recovery from the double engine failure was not possible. It was after these unsuccessful attempts that they declared to ATC that they had in fact lost both engines.
Unable to reach the assigned diversion airport, Jefferson City Memorial Airport, they crashed six minutes later outside Jefferson City, Missouri, behind a row of houses (the 600 block of Hutton Lane — two-and-a-half miles short of the airport), and the plane caught fire. Both pilots were killed. There was some damage to houses and a garage, but no one on the ground was hurt.
You watching Megyn? Must see!
A 777 doesn’t cost $280MM. You can buy a perfectly good one for $35MM-$60MM.
I'm sure they could buy it through any number of front companies. Buying one has the advantage of not alerting everyone in the world that there's a missing jet out there. But shoestring operations conducted on the basis of the jihadist equivalent of church collection plates don't have the luxury of unlimited budgets.
Whatever the method of acquisition, my guess is they'd probably paint it with the logo of some non-descript airline or freight company, enter the airspace of the target nation during the small hours of the morning and carry out the assigned mission.
Sounds like he made a series of mistakes including CHECKING the FMC or performance charts BEFORE he attempted to climb. Sounds like he just did his thing. And that my friend is dangerous
Doesn’t really matter where the O2 comes from, the process has a off switch, I can guarantee it, in modern planes. The oxygen generators you speak of, they actually used a non-reversible process manually triggered.
Why are you so combative? The end result is that pure oxygen is released into the atmosphere. This is a fire risk.
Also, thanks for the suggestion on the Google search. The 777 uses oxygen bottles, not generators. Probably should take your own advice before attempting to smack someone down in the forums :)
Or getting a nuke might have exhausted their funds.
Yes, I believe that if the aircraft climbed to FL450, under the conditions you outlined, that at an altitude less than 2,000 feet above the service ceiling, the plane would not stall.
The smallest plane I have flown over it’s service ceiling is a Grumman Cougar light twin. The largest plane I have flown over it’s service ceiling is a Cessna Citation. Neither airplane was near a stall. The Citation was at about .6 angle of attack.
I doubt it was ISA +15 or 20 at FL450.
In summary, I’ve done it.
Would the range be significantly more if the passengers were somehow dumped?
Keep in mind the two Iranians on board. Plus the captain has the last name, “Shah” which might indicate his father is Persian/Iranian.
Yep, I am watching..that Fox News Contributor thinks that the plane might have landed in Iran or Pakistan..the passengers are most likely dead, evoke Hypoxia on them and they are gone within minutes, meanwhile people in the cockpit are able to continue flying without any difficulty..Also, a question, hearing about how four hours into the flight someone turned off the signal to the satellite and that involves going into the bowel of the plane..how the heck does someone get down there?
Why do criminals use stolen cars in the commission of crimes. Why don’t they use their own or a friend’s car?
Also, a question, hearing about how four hours into the flight someone turned off the signal to the satellite and that involves going into the bowel of the plane..how the heck does someone get down there?”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3133430/posts?page=1#1
There are 14 different levels of either data or voice communication systems on the 777. To disable most of them, a skilled operator would have to leave the cockpit, lift a rug behind the cockpit door, open a floor hatch, descend a four step ladder into the electronics bay below the cockpit. The circuit breakers are labeled, including the ACARS breaker. However, there is a second unlabeled ACARS breaker that only trained service techs would know about.
These are all highly intentional acts requiring training that pilots aren’t given, or would care about.
The only point to disabling so many systems would be to hide the bearing of the aircraft from ground radar and the radar of other aircraft.
Regarding the military radar tracking that showed extreme changes in altitude, some military radars can track the altitude of a “non-cooperative” target. However, tracking is imprecise at longer ranges due to the very narrow vertical beam width broadcast.
The 777 is certified to about FL430 so FL450 is flyable but the decompression would cause most passengers to pass out. In my opinion the pilot did so to stop an attempt by passengers to retake the cabin. The pilot can also dump the cabin pressure and a few minutes at that altitude would kill nearly everyone in the cabin.
Perhaps to reduce their chance of being identified.
Good question. .apparently there is access from inside the plane.
Interesting theory that the westward direction was a ruse ..then went dark and flew somewhere else altogether. .
From what I understand, this was all done after 4 hours..if this person knew what he was doing, why wait four hours, if he didnt want the plane to be noticed on satellite, why not do it immediately? Or it could have been so much was going on at the time he forgot and realized “Oh sh*t I forgot to turn that off”
Think VALUEJET!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.