Airliner Missing

[Staggerwing]

The pressure on Malaysia, esp. from China, to be more forthcoming and timely with any info probably had a lot to do with that. The Chinese are reputed to be furious with the way Malaysia has until now handled the PR/info-sharing side of things

[GDS_Starfury]

 ???

[JasonPratt]

^^ No problem, he runs the Island now.  ;D

(While his minion is off guarding the all-seeing super-computer with Secret Agent Combat Christ. ...how is it I am not watching that show yet??!)

[bayonetbrant]

Holy crap
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/world/the-depth-of-the-problem/931/

[TheCommandTent]

Holy crap
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/world/the-depth-of-the-problem/931/

Wow that really puts it in perspective.

[Yskonyn]

Why is there no debris, assuming the incapacitating fire?

Because aircraft like this are designed (for safety's sake) 'to fly': they aren't like electric jets which will tumble around once power is lost, they're like gliders. As long as they have sufficient forward thrust they'll just keep going forward until they hit severe weather problems or a mountain or run out of gas. Even at low altitude (which the plane would have been at if it missed setting up an approach).

They will not *just* keep going forward. As long as the autopilot works and is set to follow its routing, then yes, in theory it is able to just follow the lateral routing until it encounters the things you mention.
Once gas is spent, speed will drop, the nose will try to pitch up to keep lift, autopilot will disconnect and the plane will stall, pitch downwards again to pick up speed because it has a self-correcting aerodymic design, and undulates while loosing altitude in the process until it hits the sea.

Moreover, if it finally runs out of gas having dropped down low to set up a failed approach (accidentally also below most radar coverage at any distance), it won't have time to build up a 'scatter speed' by falling before it hits the water. It should simply belly in, more or less in one piece. It floats for a while with its dead passengers (killed from smoke) and then sinks. The end. :(

I am not sure what you mean by a failed approach? Assuming the crew did not interact with the aircraft anymore due to a fire or a depressurization, the aircraft will not follow a vertical path unless the pilots have already dialed in a minimum altitude.
It will only follow its lateral path if the pilots were incapacitated early on.

As for it scattering upon contact with the sea; we get taught that even if we execute a fully controlled ditching by the book, chances are quite high that the aircraft will break or get severely damaged.
So if this airplane went belly under in an uncontrolled state either by autopilot commands (which i highly doubt), by stalling or by a shallow dive because of empty tanks, chances are pretty high the aircraft would break into several pieces.
A controlled ditching speed would be somewhere around 100 knots, so anything uncontrolled may be much higher.

What an electrical fire doesn't explain to me is the lack of black box signal activity, which I would think should have started upon loss of electrical support.  ???

As far as I remember the activation is governed either by impact or water contact. Not loss of electrical power.

[Martok]

Holy crap
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/world/the-depth-of-the-problem/931/

Wow that really puts it in perspective.

Yeah, talk about looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.  Even if they know roughly where to look, it could still be months (if not years) before they can actually find and retrieve it. 

[JasonPratt]

Ysk,

By "failed approach" I was referring to the theory of a professional pilot from several weeks ago (mentioned by Brant upthread, and which I was commenting on) that after a severe electrical problem the pilot turned around and took a heading (maybe by a reasonable guess) to an airstrip capable of handling such a large jet; but then on approach something went further wrong and the pilots were permanently incapacitated after pulling up to level flight for another turnaround, or had gotten (more-or-less) in line but were incapacitated before starting the descent procedures, leading to an overshoot perhaps off-beam significantly from the runway and so never getting near the strip to begin with. (The theorist was talking about smoke from an electrical fire leading to the final incapacitation of the pilots.)

Either way on this theory the aircraft would be flying level out to sea again after crossing the island on mostly full tanks; and even if autopilot happened to be off local atmospherics might be stable enough to keep the plane flying relatively level for a long way.

I have no idea how the recent black box business fits into that theory. But it seemed plausible to me to explain the aircraft's behavior until it was lost and how it could have gotten so far afterward.

The pilot wasn't theorizing on the relative lack of breakup after a crash subsequent to such behavior, that was just me. :) If you say that a relatively low and slow jumbo aircraft might significantly tear apart anyway even on an ideal ocean ditch (which this admittedly wouldn't have been), I certainly defer to the professional training! I think what you said didn't affect the other pilot's glidepath theory, though: I gathered he was setting up a situation where the plane would be flying steadily without further guidance for a long time until the fuel ran out, at a low altitude beneath most radar coverage.

[Gusington]

So now CNN is reporting that the 'pings' picked up 7.5 weeks ago are NOT from Flight MH370...they are possibly from the Malaysian search ship itself.

Are you $%^#ing kidding me?

[Martok]

Good gravy.  If it weren't for the tragedy inherent to the situation, I'd expect the Yakety Sax music to start playing any minute now... 

[JasonPratt]

Good gravy.  If it weren't for the tragedy inherent to the situation, I'd expect the Yakety Sax music to start playing any minute now... 

Shortly before that airliner, now stuffed with C4, rams into the Capitol building or something like that. 

[BanzaiCat]

So now CNN is reporting that the 'pings' picked up 7.5 weeks ago are NOT from Flight MH370...they are possibly from the Malaysian search ship itself.

Are you $%^#ing kidding me?

Tell me this isn't a government operation...

[Gusington]

Which government?

[BanzaiCat]

Does it matter?

[Gusington]

For me here in 'Murica...yep