RedDragon2008

Perhaps it was originally diverted towards Yemen or Somalia and crashed mid Arabian or Bengal, hence no demands.

What ever the island of "Lost" does appear to keep moving

GarryP

http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/219...missing-plane/

Ha, that sounds like what I thought - the ping datastream doesn't send position at all, but via ToF calcs on the handshake signal you can determine a rough distance value. You can then run an estimator for the track assuming constant speed.

The idea that two solutions to track and position exist corresponds to the ambiguity you get from having only a series of scalar distance measurements.

Which means they will probably have a pretty good pair of coordinates to investigate for wreckage.

Wol

It certainly looks as if, in the absence of any position information, it would be best to concentrate on two things: the area around the cessation of signals (in case it *was* a breakup) and FBI/Interpol investigation of the pax list. That might give some clue.

Searching millions of square miles of ocean absent any real idea of a rough position seems a waste of time.

GarryP

But the point is Bayesian tracking estimators gives you two good Indian Ocean candidate spots - better than any other lead at the moment.

GarryP

Malaysia PM has announced all the stuff that had been supposed is true, and further that the last contact was at 8:11am - which is basically at the maximum fuel range.

They have two regions where it could be : Kazakhstan to Turkmenistan & Northern Thailand, and Indonesia to southern Indian Ocean.

That's far further than was thought, and will have big error bars.

--------

There is a horrible possibility here, that they were trying to get to Australia. The track going north seem very unlikely, it should be on primary radar somewhere if it went that way.

GarryP

Here is a map of the corridors under discussion (which match up with my own plot, and theory)



If you add in timescales, speeds and intermediate ping points you can narrow these down a lot. I think the Australian Air Force & Navy will be involved in the search.

Shard

Getting serious now GarryP!

Where are the red lines? The photo is black and white. Is the search area the area defined by the right angle going outward or along the arrows?

GarryP

Here was my attempt that I did before, and independently, of the journo who did the above plot

http://imgur.com/KRwzWE5

The lines would be middle of the search area, but as I say, you can limit viable points along it via the totality of the data.

Shard

So they should be searching either side of those red lines?

GarryP

As I say, if you take the absolute flight time, the other pings, expected manoeuvres, radars he would have shown up on - you can end up with a Bayesian assessment of where, on and around those lines, are the most likely.

Some are saying that north, into china, is most likely - but to have done so he'd have had to fly across india, the chinese border, and likely any number of air defence radars. Not everyone is a clueless as the Malaysians - and it only takes one to scramble a fighter to intercept and the game is up.

So I think south, and that puts him on a path towards Perth, running out of fuel before he gets there. Towards Indonesia makes no sense (why take the long way round).

The nuts bit is he's gone to quite a bit of effort to look like a normal jet, but to get to the Indian Ocean and out of radar coverage. He's trying to hide - but why?

roaringmouse

If headed south, probably wouldn't have needed to aim as far as Perth - Port Hedland runway is long enough for a 777, even RAAF Learmonth if you wanted to try that one.

Beoz

Didn't the Americans say a couple of days ago what the Malaysians are saying today? Loosing face can't be much fun.

GarryP

Nope: the leaks in the US were of 4 hours of pings, but not the INMARSAT derived corridors for those pings. My guess is you are hearing about those now because they need to be searching in different places - and it would be kind of obvious if when they closed down the South China Sea activities.

The thing that gets me is motive, solve that and you solve the whole thing, but :

1. Stealing the aircraft for money makes no sense (it would be noticeable when it turned up).
2. Stealing cargo for money makes no sense (nick if from the airport, or force it down elsewhere then run away with it)
3. Industrial espionage makes no sense (much easier to copy data, physical objects are limited)
4. Kidnapping passengers makes no sense (ransom is best done by landing somewhere obvious and making demands)
5. Terrorism makes no sense (you'd want to be flying it into something immediately)
6. Pilot suicide makes no sense (aim at the ground immediately)
7. Political statement makes no sense (bloody quiet if it were)
8. Seeking asylum makes no sense (it's a pretty complex operation for that, and you'd end up in jail)

So why do you go to great pains to publicly nick a big jet, get out of radar coverage, then try your hardest to disappear?


One particularly nasty thing to come out of this. In the wake of 9/11 lots of gung-ho americans were saying "hijack is impossible now, since we'd all rush the terrorists". Well the answer to that is now known by all potential terrorists: get to altitude; vent the cabin; wait 15 to 20 mins; no passenger problem ever again.

TimbersBack

I think the only variant not leaked so far is an alien encounter. Latest is pilot suicide...

GarryP

People have been watching too many hollywood movies.

Pilot suicide makes no sense because you don't faff about turning off transponders; you point the plane straight down and put the power up to max. At that altitude you never reach the ground, it breaks up.