Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 hijacked, official says
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I think its a bit of everything. Part flat, part mountains and even part underwater volcanoI wonder what the ocean floor is like there, flat or is it an underwater mountain range? I have serious doubts the plane will ever be found
I wonder what the ocean floor is like there, flat or is it an underwater mountain range? I have serious doubts the plane will ever be found.
Feel free to examine it yourself; http://www.maps.com/map.aspx?pid=15898I think its a bit of everything. Part flat, part mountains and even part underwater volcano
Double click on the map to get an active view of the Indian Ocean.
Wow. Talk about wild goose chase. May their luck improve.A Chinese container ship in the area found some part from the missing airliner. But they realized it was from another plane and are trying to contact "aysian Airlines"
Would you believe that my aunt's plane had to make an emergency landing in Cuba in almost a field due to a smoking engine. The only injury was from a senior citizen who broke her ankle or something after jumping off the end of the wing when they evacuated the plane after it landed safely.It may not happen a lot in airliners, but in aviation in general, it's pretty common and really not a big deal. In fact, the bigger the plane, the less of a deal it is as they're higher off the ground usually and can handle a rougher surface. They probably won't be able to fly out whatever field they land in, but landing is the important part.
Ya, that's what I heard too.I think its a bit of everything. Part flat, part mountains and even part underwater volcano
I hope it's on top of a flat ridge that's higher up towards the ocean surface.
And if a plane runs out of gas, there's not going to be anyone to crash into them, plus they get priority handling and have teams of people working behind the scenes to help. The failure rate in aircraft is also extremely low. Jet engines have very few moving parts compared to the combustion engine in your car, and are subject to much more rigorous inspection and maintenance. After an engine has a total running time of a certain number, it's completely torn apart, inspected for even the kind of damage eyes can't see, anything that is designed to wear at all (like the equivalent of a gasket for example) is replaced, etc. Everything is then re-inspected, then inspected again. Any anomaly is noted and if the aircraft mechanics can't figure out the cause, they call the manufacturer and put their heads together to diagnose it.
If cars were subjected to the same maintenance standards as airplanes, you'd rarely see so much as a flat tire. Not to mention the training and evaluations pilots constantly undergo. Every year I am retested. That includes written exams on my specific aircraft, air law and navigation, as well as a practical evaluation of my flying skills. After every flight, I debrief my co-pilot on his performance and pinpoint any weak areas, as well as discuss any errors I may have made (hey, I'm not perfect). If drivers had to meet the same standards as pilots, the roads would be half empty.
Now I realize it's not mathematical or as useful as statistics, but I hope that knowing all that, including the fact that there are redundancies and procedures for everything including complete failure of all engines, complete failure of all electronics, complete failure of all hydraulics, makes you feel better about flying. Yes, shit like MH370 happens, but at the end of the day this will be studied for decades and every possible lesson there is to be learned will be. It's how we see a decline in incidents per capita year over year.
I'm aware of that but good to be reminded again. You're probably right about the maintenance-free level of planes at any one time. Cars aren't the same but commercial vehicles probably are another story (hey, we get CVOR issues in our company all the time) - big trucks that with unsecured loads or faulty brakes.
I'm sure you're a good pilot as I believe my old high school friend is too.
But do you kick the tires once in a while?
Search conditions in the Indian Ocean:
Jesus Murphy.
There's swells and then there's waves. What's the difference?
When men were men . . .They don't make balls that big anymore because the guys they would fit are extinct.
futile to say the very least. wonder how the crew manages to get a nites sleep without puking their guts out...wonder what the water temps are around there?Jesus Murphy.
There's swells and then there's waves. What's the difference?
Brutal conditions, I think swells have little or no forward motion, they are just surface unevenness, waves are coming right at you....Jesus Murphy.
There's swells and then there's waves. What's the difference?
Swells are those great big long period waves which are generated by distant weather systems - the classic illustration is that of a rock having been thrown into a pond - swells. Waves are caused by the wind where you are and can be on top of the swells.Jesus Murphy.
There's swells and then there's waves. What's the difference?
In this case these are waves.
To confuse matters the two terms are often used to mean the same thing - the use of sea state is an attempt to get around this.
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The aircraft is inspected regularly. Very regularly. In my company's case, it's inspected every night by a maintenance crew. Before each flight, it's inspected again. At regular intervals, it's gone through with varying levels of detail, but at some point everything is ripped out and all structural, electrical and mechanical components are given through testing. So, I kick the tires before every flight. In fact, if I fly from Here to JFK, I kick the tires here. Then I kick them again before the trip back. And since JFK is a short haul, I end up doing the whole trip again, usually in the same plane, and I inspect it before both legs again.I'm aware of that but good to be reminded again. You're probably right about the maintenance-free level of planes at any one time. Cars aren't the same but commercial vehicles probably are another story (hey, we get CVOR issues in our company all the time) - big trucks that with unsecured loads or faulty brakes.
I'm sure you're a good pilot as I believe my old high school friend is too.
But do you kick the tires once in a while?
To compare regular maintenance" in airplanes to cars, look at it this way: if your manufacturer says you have to replace the oil every 8,000km, you literally are not legally allowed to go 8,0001km without doing so. That means you need to plan ahead, and when you're getting close, have it taken care of. If I fly a plane to Cuba that has scheduled maintenance coming up and on the return leg get diverted by bad weather and land in Montreal instead and don't have enough time left to get back here under the maintenance window, we have to apply for a special permit just to be allowed to ferry it to our closest maintenance base empty, or rent space at a facility and fly our own techs in. We had that once where one of our birds was stuck out of country with maintenance due and while Canada issued the waiver to ferry it back, the other country didn't. So we had to send technicians out with supplies, put them in a hotel, rent some hangar space that had the tools and conduct the regular maintenance there.
Tires are kicked. All the time. On schedule. Whether it's convenient or not.
The water is about 12,000 deep in the area and if the planes remains are that deep on an uneven floor good luck with that.If this plane slammed into the water, would they not be able to detect it using seismic detectors? It is my understanding this is how the found the wreck of USS Thresher.
Its like looking for a needle in a haystack:
http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-c...olcanoes-huge-seas-complicate-search-1.533335
http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-c...olcanoes-huge-seas-complicate-search-1.533335
Undersea volcanoes, huge seas complicate search
Searchers racing to find flight MH370’s “black box” face daunting hurdles ranging from undersea volcanoes to mountainous seas as they operate in one of Earth’s most remote locations, experts said.
They warned there was no guarantee that an unprecedented international search operation involving the militaries of six nations would succeed in retrieving wreckage of the Malaysian Airlines plane which disappeared on March 8 with 239 people on board.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Wednesday said the search zone — in the southern Indian Ocean some 2,500 kilometres (1,550 miles) southwest of Perth — was “as close to nowhere as it’s possible to be”.
University of New South Wales oceanographer Erik van Sebille said the crash site was in an area known as “the Roaring Forties”, notorious among mariners for its hostile seas.
“In general, this is the windiest and waviest part of the ocean,” he said.
"In winter, if a storm passes by you can expect waves of 10-15 metres.”
The Soufan Group, a US-based strategic security intelligence consultancy, likened searching for debris in such conditions to “finding a drifting needle in a chaotic, colour-changing, perception-shifting, motion-sickness-inducing haystack”.
“A random wave might obscure the object when the eyes pass over it; sun glare off the water may blind momentarily; a look two degrees to the left when the object is most visible may cause the moment to pass,” it said.
Even if the search does find verifiable wreckage from MH370 on the surface, geologist Robin Beaman said underwater volcanoes would probably hamper efforts to recover the black box flight recorder from the depths.
Beaman said the Southeast Indian Ocean Ridge cut directly through the search area, meaning the sea bed was rugged and constantly being reshaped by magma flows.
He said the ridge was an “extremely active” range of volcanoes sitting at an average depth of 3,000 metres (1.86 miles), which marked the point where the Antarctic and Australasian tectonic plates collide.
“It’s very unfortunate if that debris has landed on the active crest area, it will make life more challenging,” Beaman, who specialises in underwater geology at Queensland’s James Cook University, told AFP.
“It’s rugged, it’s covered in faults, fine-scale gullies and ridges, there isn’t a lot of sediment blanketing that part of the world because it’s fresh (in geological terms).”
Finding the flight and cockpit voice data will be crucial in determining what caused the Boeing 777 to deviate inexplicably off course and fly thousands of miles in the wrong direction.
Malaysia believes the plane was deliberately diverted by someone on board.
University of Sydney aviation expert Peter Gibbens said searchers faced a race against time, with acoustic signals from the black box set to fall silent in about two weeks when its battery expires.
“They’re going to be pushing it with time, the chances are stacked against them,” he said.
In a sign of the level of cooperation achieved in the search, the US military has sent a hi-tech black box locator to Perth which will be reportedly fitted to an Australian navy ship so it can scour the likely crash site.
Van Sebille said the remote location at least meant searchers did not have to contend with the large collections of random garbage that litter most other oceans, reducing the likelihood they would be distracted by false leads.
“This area of ocean is virtually pristine,” he said, explaining that ocean currents in the area naturally moved flotsam north, away from the search area.
He said this meant the large objects that had been sighted by air crews were likely to have come from MH370.
“If the plane would have gone down in any of the other ocean basins I would be much more sceptical that the pieces of debris spotted were actually part of the plane,” he said
Brutal conditions, I think swells have little or no forward motion, they are just surface unevenness, waves are coming right at you....
Thank you gents.Swells are those great big long period waves which are generated by distant weather systems - the classic illustration is that of a rock having been thrown into a pond - swells. Waves are caused by the wind where you are and can be on top of the swells.
In this case these are waves.
To confuse matters the two terms are often used to mean the same thing - the use of sea state is an attempt to get around this.
"Sea state"?
I've also read that waves can reach 40 feet in those parts!
It would be the initial impact that would be detected. It was actually the USS Scorpion that was found this way. It's wreck lies in 2700m of water.The water is about 12,000 deep in the area and if the planes remains are that deep on an uneven floor good luck with that.
I was only kidding about tire kicking. Is that really done though?The aircraft is inspected regularly. Very regularly. In my company's case, it's inspected every night by a maintenance crew. Before each flight, it's inspected again. At regular intervals, it's gone through with varying levels of detail, but at some point everything is ripped out and all structural, electrical and mechanical components are given through testing. So, I kick the tires before every flight. In fact, if I fly from Here to JFK, I kick the tires here. Then I kick them again before the trip back. And since JFK is a short haul, I end up doing the whole trip again, usually in the same plane, and I inspect it before both legs again.
To compare regular maintenance" in airplanes to cars, look at it this way: if your manufacturer says you have to replace the oil every 8,000km, you literally are not legally allowed to go 8,0001km without doing so. That means you need to plan ahead, and when you're getting close, have it taken care of. If I fly a plane to Cuba that has scheduled maintenance coming up and on the return leg get diverted by bad weather and land in Montreal instead and don't have enough time left to get back here under the maintenance window, we have to apply for a special permit just to be allowed to ferry it to our closest maintenance base empty, or rent space at a facility and fly our own techs in. We had that once where one of our birds was stuck out of country with maintenance due and while Canada issued the waiver to ferry it back, the other country didn't. So we had to send technicians out with supplies, put them in a hotel, rent some hangar space that had the tools and conduct the regular maintenance there.
Tires are kicked. All the time. On schedule. Whether it's convenient or not.
I also remember that I have another high school and university friend who went to military college to become a pilot. Fighter pilot was his dream but didn't happen for some bad luck. He eventually flew for a major corporation. He might fly not for a courier company. Then a lady friend's daughter flies for a private company (she worked with the latter high school guy at one time - small world).
