Malaysia Airlines tragedies

[Gmash]

Well I don't know, that's why I was asking, but apparently in most instances the recordings are released within days. The victims families are quite upset about being refused the chance to hear them, even in private, and it seems just to fuel more speculation and conspiracy theories to hold them back. If the transcript is the same as the tape (which is what a transcript is supposed to be, obviously), I don't see the benefit. Again, I don't have an answer, and the media is just hot air at this point, that's why I come here for fact-checking lol.

 

[EarlyMon]

Well I don't know, that's why I was asking, but apparently in most instances the recordings are released within days. The victims families are quite upset about being refused the chance to hear them, even in private, and it seems just to fuel more speculation and conspiracy theories to hold them back. If the transcript is the same as the tape (which is what a transcript is supposed to be, obviously), I don't see the benefit. Again, I don't have an answer, and the media is just hot air at this point, that's why I come here for fact-checking lol.

I hear you, and agree.

I don't know what really has to change moving forward where aircraft data are concerned but I think that the rules of having the country of origin being the leader for investigating international flights flights lost outside their borders ought to change.

A few reports have said that Hishammuddin is a descendant of a previous prime minister. One went further and looked at the whole clan - he's also related to the current one.

I don't think what's the family and friends have suffered at their hands has been appropriate. I hope I never see anything like this again.

 

[Stuntman]

I would have thought that they would use the specialised equipment to locate the flight recorders sooner. I did see some stories about the special equipment for weeks, but it wasn't being used. I'm thinking it would take some time to get the equipment into the area due to its remoteness and the inclement weather.

Right now, there are just so many stories and articles with people speculating what happened. I think that at this time, reporters should just come out and say the truth which is they don't know what happened and why the plane ended up where it is now. It seems, networks and papers just want to fill airtime and print space with something. What is used to fill them is just useless jabber.

 

[EarlyMon]

Aye but tow the locator where?

Meanwhile, an "Australian" nuclear sub has joined and is also swimming around in hopes of finding the data recorders.

According to http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/missing-flight-mh370-live-updates-3363920

"HMS Tireless is a Trafalgar-class submarine and despite being 25-years-old it still plays a vital role on the front line of military operations.

She was launched on 17 March 1984 and has been modified since it's early Cold War career to withstand gruelling conditions."

Way to go, Mirror.

Not many vessels launched 30 years ago are only 25 years old.

I'm especially interested in the idea that nuclear submarines aren't built to withstand grueling conditions in the first place. Ask Sponge Bob, even Bikini Bottom has a rough neighborhood.

Here you go, don't blush, it's well-earned -

Spoiler

PS - HMS means she's British.

She's had hull damage from hitting an iceberg, and a separate incident involving a reactor coolant leak. And she went through a refit back in the 90s.

None of which means grueling conditions become a new idea for submarine operations.

As for her "vital role on the front line of military operations" "despite being 25-years-old," she was scheduled to be decommissioned last year.

 

[Slug]

As for her "vital role on the front line of military operations" "despite being 25-years-old," she was scheduled to be decommissioned last year.

That's just typical UK government/Defence Ministry bungling. They planned to decommission her but (as is usual) her replacement is still vapourware.

The Trafalgar-class boats are packed with sophisticated passive and active sonar arrays, as befitting their intended role as hunter/killers of Soviet SSBM platforms. However even these will be hard-pushed to make a dent on a 217000 sq km search area.

edit:
Just posted on the BBC News site:

China ship 'picks up signal'

Chinese media [...] say the signal has a frequency of 37.5kHz per second - the same as those emitted by the flight recorders.

However there is no evidence so far that it is linked to MH370

 

[EarlyMon]

Add on the difficulties of the underwater locator beacon's sound being shielded by mountain ridges and bouncing around canyons even if heard at all.

When I'm really depressed, I read the comments at the news sites.

Many are made by pathetic wankers incapable of forming a logical thought sadly believing their own irrational rants.

But every so often, I see one that really explains what's going on with the reports and the comments.

Here's the one for today -

"Have monkeys - have typewriters - need more time."

 

[Gmash]

Let's hope this pulse the Chinese ship has picked up is for real. They shouldn't even be reporting this without a lot more confirmation.

 

[EarlyMon]

edit:
Just posted on the BBC News site:

China ship 'picks up signal'

According to the article and Google Maps, here's the approximate location of where they heard what could be the ULB -

 

[EarlyMon]

Let's hope this pulse the Chinese ship has picked up is for real. They shouldn't even be reporting this without a lot more confirmation.

Nine hours ago, this was their headline -

China's Haixun-01 boosts efforts to detect black box

Now -

Chinese search vessels discovers pulse signal in Indian Ocean - Xinhua | English.news.cn

Fortuitous.

PS - the BBC has already copied this from XinhuaNet - "37.5kHz per second" - the ULB pulse is at 37.5kHz (in other words, a hypersonic pulse that lasts 26.67 microseconds) and it repeats every second. (Hz per second is not a valid dimension)

 

[Gmash]

Nine hours ago, this was their headline -

China's Haixun-01 boosts efforts to detect black box

Now -

Chinese search vessels discovers pulse signal in Indian Ocean - Xinhua | English.news.cn

Fortuitous.

PS - the BBC has already copied this error from XinhuaNet - "37.5kHz per second" - the ULB pulse is simply at 37.5kHz. (Hz means per second)

Fortuitous indeed...

 

[EarlyMon]

Fortuitous indeed...

That red pin in my map above - it's 9:44 PM there now.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal started running a timeout counter on the black box (because it's going to work for *precisely* 30 days) - http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303532704579481112384415906

Google is already getting slammed with "new" reports, as in repeats and retreads of one paragraph out of China.

It's going to be a fun news day.

My donkey is beside himself.

 

[SolApathy]

I just hope they find it soon so the families can get some closure.

 

[BRAINZ2013]

I have made a lot of jokes about this and a few tips and pointers,but I Dont think anyone ever thought about this idea . we all know about the famous Google and Motorola.now let's just say someone invented a blackbox that sends out the famous ping as it always did but now have a extra module that will allow faa officials to send a tone to this box that would send out the known spot it is in and to keep us from getting dirty or as in the case being in a big ocean we can retrieve this data from the box from a remote location. As big as this black box is I know its one little spot we can put a sealed space that will have a battery and motherboard and a . I know its not any good now but maybe plans on making one will prevent future problems.

 

[EarlyMon]

Chinese ship detects 'pulse signal' in search for missing Malaysia Airlines jet, report says | Fox News

"The Australian government agency coordinating the search would not immediately comment on the report."

But did that stop the Crash News Network?

No. No it did not.

"A source at the Australian Defence Force told CNN that it got word of the report around noon Saturday (midnight Friday ET) but had not communicated with the ship in the 10 hours since.

Though other countries' search teams communicate directly with Australian officials by texting, communication with the Chinese searchers goes first to Beijing, which then communicates with officials in Australia, the source said."

In that same story -

'This could be a variety of things," says oceanographer Simon Boxall.'

And -

'CNN aviation analyst David Soucie was less skeptical. "This is a pinger," the airplane accident investigator said. "I've been doing this a lot of years, and I can't think of anything else it could be."'

CNN please don't ever stop just being you -

Spoiler

How about The Guardian?

"China's Liberation Daily reported that three people on board the ship had heard the signals, which had not been recorded because they came suddenly."

"A reporter for Chinese state television said that the signal was heard for around a minute and a half."

MH370: Chinese patrol ship detects ping near suspected location of plane | World news | theguardian.com

Oh. But wait.

Ok, The Guardian and the Liberation Daily get to share this one -

Spoiler

You may have heard along the line that the range of human hearing is theoretically 20 to 20 kHz.

The highest pitched noise you've ever really heard outside of a doctor's office is about 8 kHz with a second harmonic at 16 kHz.

Don't be upset because a hypersonic sensor would indicate the ping visually (maybe with an alarm).

Don't be upset that the hypersonic sensor has a RECORD button that's so hard to figure out that three guys together couldn't do it in a minute and a half on what may be the highest-profile search in history.

No no.

Be upset, be very upset because - the Chinese can now hear in the hypersonic range.

Anything else today from The Guardian?

Why yes. Yes there is.

Flight MH370: 'Hunt for black box may be in the wrong area' | World news | The Observer

That's got to be worth another.

Spoiler

Btw - GPS doesn't work underwater.

 

[EarlyMon]

Btw - so far as I've seen, none of the usual suspects have posted a map showing the alleged location of observable.

Just me.

If you study the map I provided, you'll notice that the pinned dot is straight down from the M in Malaysia and straight over from the A in Australia.

Some would say that's merely a coincidence.

I know I would.

 

[SolApathy]

The three stooges would have screwed up this search less than the people involved in it now... Between them and the news organizations regurgitating news on an epic scale, jumping at any crack smoking fisherman story saying they have information....t this has got to be close to one of the most epic search screw-ups of all time.

 

[jefboyardee]

CNN: Saturday's leads came as concern was rising that the batteries powering the missing Boeing 777's locator pingers would soon go dead. The plane disappeared on March 8; its batteries were guaranteed to work for 30 days underwater, and are predicted to die slowly over the following days. Monday marks day 30.

The batteries on Flight 370's black boxes were due to be replaced in June, the Malaysia Airlines chief executive said Saturday.

 

[EarlyMon]

CNN: Saturday's leads came as concern was rising that the batteries powering the missing Boeing 777's locator pingers would soon go dead. The plane disappeared on March 8; its batteries were guaranteed to work for 30 days underwater, and are predicted to die slowly over the following days. Monday marks day 30.

The batteries on Flight 370's black boxes were due to be replaced in June, the Malaysia Airlines chief executive said Saturday.

There's a lot of finger pointing - did they skip battery maintenance, no they didn't, yes they did - I'm not going to bother repeating the links, probably you've seen them.

Anyway - there's good news and bad news.

Bad news - these are batteries. They could dead already. We all know about batteries, I think, yes.

Good news - these are batteries built with a margin for error (not of error, for error - or, robustness, if you prefer). Not impossible that the signal could still go on for up to another two weeks, although weaker, still on.

 

[jefboyardee]

How does one file a claim on 'guaranteed to work for 30 days underwater?' They can't prove it was underwater unless they find it there and they can't find it there if the battery's dead.

 

[Steven58]

Second ping (literally a click). Could this be it?????

 

[EarlyMon]

Second ping (literally a click). Could this be it?????

Maybe. Not necessarily.

http://www.latimes.com/world/worldn...airlines-search-ping-20140405,0,5012897.story

Take your pick.

The Haixun 01 picked up some signal yesterday or it picked it up for a minute and a half.

Today, it picked up a second single pulse in the same general area - that's only been approximated in the news.

Meanwhile, the Ocean Shield also picked up a single signal today.

Except it was 300 nautical miles away when it did.

None are confirmed belonging to the plane's data recorders.

None have been independently verified as having actually occurred.

So it's not a second ping or click - at least 3 events have been reported, and the actual number keeps changing.

I guess it's fair enough to call it a click. Or a tick.

It's far beyond the range of human hearing, so, it sounds more like this:


Hope that helps.

 

[jefboyardee]

Chinese, Australian Ships Chase Potential 'Pings' from Malaysia Jet

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he was "hopeful but by no means certain" that the reported pulse signals were related to MH370.

"This is the most difficult search in human history. We are searching for an aircraft which is at the bottom of a very deep ocean and it is a very, very wide search area," Abbott told reporters in Tokyo, where he is on a visit.

('most difficult' same as 'most expensive')

 

[EarlyMon]

('most difficult' same as 'most expensive')

It's not going to get easier judging from what little we know of the sea floor, if those signals came from data recorder(s).

I guess I hope that they figure this out and help prevent it, whatever it was, from happening again.

 

[EarlyMon]

Missing Malaysia Airlines flight may have skirted Indonesian airspace, says Malaysian official

"The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media, said Indonesian authorities confirmed that the plane did not show up on their military radar. The plane could have deliberately flown around Indonesian airspace to avoid detection, or may have coincidentally travelled out of radar range, he said."

Wow.

What an insightful report.

When something happens, it's either on purpose or by coincidence.

Man, that really gets down to it.

What would we ever do without hard-hitting reports like that?

Bonus points for finding an unauthorized Malaysian official that wants to be the big man.

He must have been really, really hard to find.

Spoiler

Sydney Morning Herald, sit down and shut up.

Seriously. And don't come back.

 

[Slug]

BBC News - Plane search has 'best lead so far'

An Australian vessel searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane has detected signals consistent with those from "black box" flight recorders.

Defence vessel Ocean Shield acquired the signal twice, once for more than two hours, said Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, who is leading the search.