Missing Malaysian Flight 370

[LCHIEN]

With long range radar it is hard to tell the altitude.
The bearing is easily ascertained accurately because of the angle the antenna points in and its sweeping through a full circle.
The distance is easily ascertained accurately from the delay of the transmit to the echo - delays can be resolved to extremely small increments.
The altitude is hard to discern because the radar beam is fairly wide and not swept up and down as it is side to side. its also a relatively small elevation angle so small errors in approximating elevation translate to large vertical height errors at distance.
When they say it was at such and such lat and lon I can believe it. When they say it was headed in such and such direction I can believe that they took two lat lon positions at slightly different times and plotted the direction and speed. But when they say it went from 23000 ft to 45000 feet I take that with a grain of salt. Overall the altitude data is the hardest to believe.

[leehljp]

I heard an "expert" say that the sudden ascent to 45000 ft may have been an attempt to "humanely" kill the passengers because they would black out after only 2 or 3 seconds and death would ensue in one or two minutes. Meanwhile the hijackers would be wearing oxygen masks so they would not be affected. If true, it means they weren't planning suicide or crashing the plane.

So, what were they planning?

Was there some kind of secret cargo or something special in someone's luggage?

Was it the plane itself as a complete plane? Or For parts - parting out the plane like we do our beloved saw?

IF it was for the plane itself, the main plausable reason that I can think of is - as a future suicide terriost mission. That plane could not go anywhere and land - except where a country would be in cohoots with them. This plane, if still intact, would be a ONE TiME use plane as it is now, unless recovered.

This was probably planned well in advance and either for this specific time? Or waiting until one or several factors (travelers/cargo) came together with both or one of these specific pilots?

OK fellows - lets play this scenerio out. Any more "logical" scenarios from the information that is currently out there?

[phrog]

With long range radar it is hard to tell the altitude.
The bearing is easily ascertained accurately because of the angle the antenna points in and its sweeping through a full circle.
The distance is easily ascertained accurately from the delay of the transmit to the echo - delays can be resolved to extremely small increments.
The altitude is hard to discern because the radar beam is fairly wide and not swept up and down as it is side to side. its also a relatively small elevation angle so small errors in approximating elevation translate to large vertical height errors at distance.
When they say it was at such and such lat and lon I can believe it. When they say it was headed in such and such direction I can believe that they took two lat lon positions at slightly different times and plotted the direction and speed. But when they say it went from 23000 ft to 45000 feet I take that with a grain of salt. Overall the altitude data is the hardest to believe.

Makes sense to me but I was led to believe that the altitude was being transmitted to them before all comm. were cut. But then, I haven't kept up with it as much as many have. - Too many "experts" expressing too many opinions to fill up tv air time seems to me. Concrete facts seem to be few so far.

[phrog]

So, what were they planning?

Was there some kind of secret cargo or something special in someone's luggage?

Was it the plane itself as a complete plane? Or For parts - parting out the plane like we do our beloved saw?

IF it was for the plane itself, the main plausable reason that I can think of is - as a future suicide terriost mission. That plane could not go anywhere and land - except where a country would be in cohoots with them.

This was probably planned well in advance and either for this specific time? Or waiting until one or several factors (travelers/cargo) came together with both or one of these specific pilots?

OK fellows - lets play this scenerio out. Any more "logical" scenarios from the information that is currently out there?

Someone important on board - perhaps a scientist working on a secret project. I wonder if that possibility is being explored.

[leehljp]

But when they say it went from 23000 ft to 45000 feet I take that with a grain of salt. Overall the altitude data is the hardest to believe.

41,000/42,000 feet is something I read a few years ago that some pilots envy, and in red neck fashion wish to join the 41,000 club. However, I believe that altitude is reserved for military planes. As such Most/all Commercial jets are not, or were not certified to fly at 41,000/42,000 feet, IIRC. It seems like it was the engines of commercial jets that were not certified and could, in all probability begin to fail once that altitude is reached.

Another IIRC: Back in the '90s (?) a pilot ferrying a small commercial jet wanted to join the 41,000 club. Of couse it was against FAA regulations. Once he reached the altitude - something happened in his decent and he lost control a crashed. There was one other person on board with him. I think it was Missouri that this happened.

Loring, what you wrote went through my mind also. It is possible that current engines are not "certified" for but built to work at that altitude - in critical situations such as what happed to the 747 when it flew through volcanic ash some years ago? Could 45,000 be built in for crtitical emergency situations?

It does seem strange that one (777) could go that high.

[LCHIEN]

the real facts are that govern a specific airplane wing design:
1. as you get higher in altitude the stall speed goes up because you get less lift from the thinner air, thus you must go faster than the stall speed to avoid falling out of the air. You MUST FLY FASTER than the STALL speed.
2. as you go higher in altititde, the maximum airspeed you can go is called the critical mach number expressed as a fraction of the speed of sound (e.g. mach 0.9) decreases, e.g. the airflow disruption due to the speed of the air over the wings causes the lift to be destroyed.You MUST NOT EXCEED this number.

Both criteria must be met for the plane to fly. If you plot these on the same chart you see that at high altitudes the critical mach number approaches the stall speed and once they meet at the so called coffin corner the plane can no longer fly and it literally falls out of the air leading to the name of that point. In fact going up to that point is very dangerous because the margin between too fast and too slow is literally a few MPH.

So for commercial aircraft the certified ceiling is usually about 40,000 feet above which the dangerous coffin corner makes it hazardous to fly.

P.S. I'm seeing some sites that mention the 777 has a certifed op ceiling of 43,100 feet. I presume that's still below the coffin corner.

P.P.S.
for example the speed of sound is 770mph at sea level and 670 mph at 30,000 feet
a plane rated at mach 0.85 critical mach number would be able to fly 654 mph at sea level and 569 mph at 30,000 feet

At sea level the stall speed of a jet is about 180 mph, at 30,000 feet it might be 450 mph (just guessing couldn't find a an actual example)

So this hypothetical plane could fly between 180 and 654 mph at sea level but would have to be going between 450 and 569 mph at 30,000 feet. only a 120 mph range of speeds. As it went higher the numbers would close more perhaps something like between 500 and 520 mph at 45,000 feet leading to a very dangerous situation simply falling out of the sky if permitted to go faster than 520 or slower than 500.

[leehljp]

the real facts are that govern a specific airplane wing design:
1. as you get higher in altitude the stall speed goes up because you get less lift from the thinner air, thus you must go faster than the stall speed to avoid falling out of the air. You MUST FLY FASTER than the STALL speed.
2. as you go higher in altititde, the maximum airspeed you can go is called the critical mach number expressed as a fraction of the speed of sound (e.g. mach 0.9) decreases, e.g. the airflow disruption due to the speed of the air over the wings causes the lift to be destroyed.You MUST NOT EXCEED this number.

Both criteria must be met for the plane to fly. If you plot these on the same chart you see that at high altitudes the critical mach number approaches the stall speed and once they meet at the so called coffin corner the plane can no longer fly and it literally falls out of the air leading to the name of that point. In fact going up to that point is very dangerous because the margin between too fast and too slow is literally a few MPH.

So for commercial aircraft the certified ceiling is usually about 40,000 feet above which the dangerous coffin corner makes it hazardous to fly.

P.S. I'm seeing some sites that mention the 777 has a certifed op ceiling of 43,100 feet. I presume that's still below the coffin corner.

Thanks Loring! That explains it well!

[lrr]

I think the disappearance of the airliner is for a new reality series based loosely on the TV series Lost. But then again, maybe I watch too much TV ...

[All Thumbs]

fortunately most of the US would be beyond the very end of the range for fueling if they were to try and fly it to the US. To try and suicide bomb a US City they first have to buy 43,000 gals of fuel at $4 per gallon for around $170,000. Then assuming they are near malaysia, its more than 8700 miles to los angeles the closest major US continental city and the range of the 777-200er is only 7700 miles when full of fuel. India or Australia would be farther. The major cause of the collapse of the World trade center was the nearly full fuel tanks fueling the resulting fire. The world trade center was built to with stand fire fueled by items in the building, but not 30,000 gallons of aviation fuel from nearly full airplanes. A nearly empty (Fuel-wise) plane while still horrific, would do much less damage.

Remove the weight of the seats, passengers, luggage, and any additional cargo from the equation. Add fuel bladders in the cabin, along with high explosives, and radioactive material.

Forget about cost, $200k is nothing.

With each passing day that a crash site isn't discovered, the likelihood of what I'm describing goes up dramatically, I'm afraid. I'm hoping (praying) that there is a less nefarious explanation.

[LCHIEN]

I have a new theory: CIA project to probe the air defenses or lack thereof, of a number of southeast and Indian ocean countries. Apparently they didn't find too much.

[capncarl]

I would like to point out that even though we always want to be the "most" of everything, we are not always the most hated country in the world. Add this to all the conspiracy theories and the fact that we are half a world away, someone else may be the unlucky victim of this 777 terror attact. I can think of a large number of countries that have pissed off some crackpot terrorist group that is in easy flight range of a 777 full of explosives. Not knowing if the passengers are alive, would they shoot the plane down if it suddenly showed up flying toward, say Rome?

[TB Roye]

Not to make light of the plight of passengers and their families. Flight 370 in now Crimea 1 or Putins new American made executive jet, no crazier than all the other theories.

Tom

[LCHIEN]

the US Navy said the 7th fleet was called off the search today.
I'm betting that the US has several submarines (probably not attached to the 7th fleet) in the Indian Ocean searching with their passive sonar for the pingers from the black boxes.

The submarines are not only faster than surface vessels and can cover more distance quickly but because there is less surface acoustic noise, the sound travels better in deeper (more dense) water, and the subs have very sophisticated passive sonar arrays they can detect the pingers from much farther away. This presumes the thinking is that the plane is down in the Indian Ocean.

of course all the facts don't add up.
Suicidal pliots they would have crashed it in the first hour
Hijacking for a 9/11-style attach they would have gone straight to the target, If they landed first the they give up surprise and have all the logistic problems of landing concealment, refueling, takeoff and navigation. Why make it tough on themselves?
Just fascinating.

[JimD]

The only comment I have is pretty much just stating the obvious. But somebody who would hijack a plane isn't thinking like the rest of us. So that makes it tough to figure out what they were thinking and what they did. It could be that they wanted the plane to be hard to find, that would be consistent with switching off the communications and then flying for several hours. But applying logic to a situation where the key participants were not thinking rationally is not necessarily a success path.

[All Thumbs]

Hijacking for a 9/11-style attach they would have gone straight to the target, If they landed first the they give up surprise and have all the logistic problems of landing concealment, refueling, takeoff and navigation. Why make it tough on themselves?
Just fascinating.

A 9/11 style attack will likely never occur again. When planes go missing, air forces go on alert, fighters scramble when planes appear off their normal routes. Too risky.

So take the plane, keep it away from targets, land it somewhere, kill the passengers, weaponize it. Now remove some parts of the plane that float, sail out to sea, dump those parts in the water so the water will carry them to shore where they will be discovered. News stories will say bits of the wreckage have been discovered. Months to years later, take off in the plane under a registered flight number towards your target, and air traffic control will wave you right into their air space. With a little help from people on the ground, you could probably land, refuel, and take off again as if you were making connections.

Land the plane at JFK, now Iran calls the White House with their list of demands. They've got a nuke sitting at JFK, what is your answer, Mr. President?