Posted on 03/13/2014 1:56:01 PM PDT by CedarDave
Investigators Believe Plane Flew On for Total of Up to Five Hours
U.S. investigators suspect that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 stayed in the air for up to four hours past the time it reached its last confirmed location, according to two people familiar with the details, raising the possibility that the plane could have flown on for hundreds of additional miles under conditions that remain murky.
The investigators believe the plane flew for a total of up to five hours, according to these people, based on analysis of signals sent by the Boeing 777's satellite-communication link designed to automatically transmit the status of certain onboard systems to the ground.
Throughout the roughly four hours after the jet dropped from civilian radar screens, these people said, the link operated in a kind of standby mode and sought to establish contact with a satellite or satellites. These transmissions did not include data, they said, but the periodic contacts indicate to investigators that the plane was still intact and believed to be flying.
Corrections & Amplifications U.S. investigators suspect Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 flew for hours past the time it reached its last confirmed location, based on an analysis of signals sent through the plane's satellite-communication link designed to automatically transmit the status of onboard systems, according to people familiar with the matter. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said investigators based their suspicions on signals from monitoring systems embedded in the plane's Rolls-Royce PLC engines and described that process.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Too far.
i am beginning to believe someone stole it. explains no crash, no transponder. pity the folks on that plane.
That's pretty much my take on it; something catastrophic along those lines; obviously the most logical conclusion. They should be able to estimate where the wreckage is and do a thorough search and eventually find what's left. I have a feeling that there's some incompetence going on here; that people have looked in the right area, missed or overlooked things, and then concluded that they wouldn't have to search that area again.
If the airplane’s satellite link was working, why wasn’t the Rolls-Royce engine health monitor also working?
Not enough fuel?...........
Where is Tom Clancy I say? =)
Exactly..dead people can’t turn off transponders..and you have to be extremely knowledgeable about planes to do so, so the pilots(Or someone else, like a hijacker) had to have turned them off..remember, all of the 9/11 hijackers, the second they took control of those planes what is the first thing they did, turn OFF the transponders
Iran would be out of range and they already have access to large aircraft. It would have to be a smaller terrorist group with control over a remote airstrip large enough for a 777. Then they would need to be able to refuel it if they are going to use it as a weapon.
>> decompression ... happened, immediately killing everyone on board...
Well, it doesn’t “immediately kill”. TUC - time of useful consciousness is altitude dependent. At 35,000 feet, you can go from 30 to 60 seconds before you enter la-la land. A rapid decompression (i.e. a BIG hole in the fuselage) can cut that time in half. But still plenty of time to get over the “WTF was that?” and put on the mask.
FAA regulations require one pilot to wear the O2 mask above FL350 (35,000’). This is routinely ignored by aircrews.
So here is a what if scenario question.
If you wanted to bring down the entire airline industry and terrorize the global flying population for islamic terrorist purposes, why not hijack a redeye airliner, fly it westward under the cover of darkness, land it somewhere in an islamic country, and start beheading the passengers, one by one after several days? And start posting the videos on Youtube?
I know it sounds crazy but i just went through nineteen threads on the airliners.net forum and the fact that this was a redeye does not seem to get a lot of attention. The passengers would never know they were over a huge body of water of water in the dead of night. During the day people would start asking questions and raise hell.
The whole scenario of the 777 crashing somewhere does not jive with the transponder being turned off. I can’t help but think that we have an entire new terror scenario here.
Doubtful, from my view. If that system is causing a fire or electrical overload, you have to have the capability to shut it off. That’s why all these systems have off switches anyway... safety. Doesn’t matter if its the O2 system, if it is a risk to the safety of the aircraft, there has to be a know to disable it.
It’s a big world out there............................
B I N G O ..................................
Exactly UNLESS they were separate services. See post 25.
know->knob
Added about 700 miles to the trip to Beijing. It’s about an 1.5 hours over the planned trip at cruise airspeed. But the plane took off, wasted an hour at least before heading west. If it dropped much below 30K, the planning data really cuts the range. Its 3200 miles to Iran.
You're welcome.
I don't know much either, but have learned some from fellow Freepers in-the-know. You're absolutely correct, it is out there.
Just someone who was trained to do it. Don't even have to tell them why, just do it.
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