Once again, it blows my mind that in 2014 one of the most advanced airliners in the world can just fucking disappear.
How does that even happen? For god's sake - my dad's boat has an EPIRB that will automatically deploy if his boat sinks and will be detected anywhere in the world.
I'm feeling more and more like we'll never know what happened. I mean, maybe someday someone will stumble across / parts of it at random, but it really feels like nobody has a fucking clue what / where this plane went down and they never will.
Which...is scary because if it was a design flaw, we might not know until another airliner goes down.
The planet is really, really, big and CSI is make believe. People with PLBs still go missing, boats with EPIRBs aren't always located, small planes with ELTs still prove elusive, radar doesn't cover everywhere, and huge chunks of keeping track of where everybody is dependent on them saying, "Here I am."
The planet is really, really, big and CSI is make believe. People with PLBs still go missing, boats with EPIRBs aren't always located, small planes with ELTs still prove elusive, radar doesn't cover everywhere, and huge chunks of keeping track of where everybody is dependent on them saying, "Here I am."
I don't know, it would seem that nowadays it wouldn't be TOO challenging to get a continuously broadcasting GPS system onto a plane which would detach and float if the plane landed in water. This wasn't some old junker of a plane, it was pretty darn new.
Just as a side-note, on the ships I worked on we had:
A: Distress beacon with GPS
B: 10-12 lifeboats(Depending on the size of ship I was on) each with GPS and radios
C: 18-24 liferafts, with signalling devices(which I'll get to)
The lifeboats and rafts were, of course, painted orange for maximum visibility.
What signaling devices did we have?
A mirror
3 Parachute flares
3 Smoke flares
3 Regular flares
In each boat and raft
With all of this, we still had explicit emergency directions for the first 72 hours in the event of an emergency, in addition to supplies I think out to a week? It's been a while now, I haven't had my weekly drills where we're reminded of all of this.
Even though we had advanced electronic signaling devices and a goddamn insane amount of signaling devices when you put it all together(12 boats and 24 rafts with all of that in them), and sailing primarily only a tiny small bit off the coast normally(In 3 years I did... 2 Atlantic crossings as just straight across and 1 Pacific crossing) we still were drilled with an assumption of around 72 hours before someone found us and help could arrive.
Can I assume, though, that the durability required for GPS equipment on a boat that is floating around in the water is somewhat less than that for a plane that might be striking the ground at several hundred miles per hour? It's not like they can just hot-glue an iPhone to the fuselage and call it done, I'd wager.
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Can I assume, though, that the durability required for GPS equipment on a boat that is floating around in the water is somewhat less than that for a plane that might be striking the ground at several hundred miles per hour? It's not like they can just hot-glue an iPhone to the fuselage and call it done, I'd wager.
That depends.
Was the iPhone being held in the death grip at the time?
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Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear.
The point I was trying to make wasn't "Why doesn't the plane have this shit"
rather: "Holy shit even if we have 14 GPS transponders floating around 5 nautical miles from shore we still give them damn parachute flares, because we're not sure we can find them within a week?!"
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
You know what would be a great way to track a plane? Radioactive materials.
Can I assume, though, that the durability required for GPS equipment on a boat that is floating around in the water is somewhat less than that for a plane that might be striking the ground at several hundred miles per hour? It's not like they can just hot-glue an iPhone to the fuselage and call it done, I'd wager.
We can put gps equipment in an artillery shell and launch it for miles, its not actually hard at all.
Its just costly and would be very very rarely needed due to the other systems in place and the rate of plane crashes.
Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear.
The point I was trying to make wasn't "Why doesn't the plane have this shit"
rather: "Holy shit even if we have 14 GPS transponders floating around 5 nautical miles from shore we still give them damn parachute flares, because we're not sure we can find them within a week?!"
That seems to presume there are survivors to use them.
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jergarmarhollow man crewgoes pew pew pewRegistered Userregular
Can I assume, though, that the durability required for GPS equipment on a boat that is floating around in the water is somewhat less than that for a plane that might be striking the ground at several hundred miles per hour? It's not like they can just hot-glue an iPhone to the fuselage and call it done, I'd wager.
I'm just one guy, so take this with a grain of salt, but let me describe a similar situation to you from my world of expertise: Navy nuclear submarines. In 2001 our "sister ship" surfaced and sank a sightseeing vessel off the coast of Oahu. This was supposed to be nearly impossible, because of the multiple overlapping safety procedures in place. However, the account of the collision is a fascinating account of hurried safety procedures and multiple barely-missed chances, allowing a pinhole blind spot at the worst possible moment.
What's the point? Well, it's amazing how much we depend, not on electronics, but on well-trained human beings. The next time your flight lands, just think about your situation: some guy is manually operating the plane as it travels hundreds of miles per hour and lands on a narrow little strip of concrete in the middle of some city. In this day and age of computers and electronics! Every time you fly, you're one mental breakdown away from a "we interrupt your normal broadcast to inform you that...". But sometimes the stars align and something happens to bypass all that training and preparation.
So it doesn't surprise me that there is no "contingency plan" for the electronics being turned off. It's so crazy that it's a close cousin to "pilot goes crazy, shoots co-pilot, crashes plane". Unimaginable, up until now.
EDIT: I'm not making any statements on WHAT exactly happened, just answering the question, "Why was it possible for the pilot (or someone in the cockpit) to turn off the electronics?"
Can I assume, though, that the durability required for GPS equipment on a boat that is floating around in the water is somewhat less than that for a plane that might be striking the ground at several hundred miles per hour? It's not like they can just hot-glue an iPhone to the fuselage and call it done, I'd wager.
We can put gps equipment in an artillery shell and launch it for miles, its not actually hard at all.
Its just costly and would be very very rarely needed due to the other systems in place and the rate of plane crashes.
I did not know that. That's pretty rad.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Can I assume, though, that the durability required for GPS equipment on a boat that is floating around in the water is somewhat less than that for a plane that might be striking the ground at several hundred miles per hour? It's not like they can just hot-glue an iPhone to the fuselage and call it done, I'd wager.
I'm just one guy, so take this with a grain of salt, but let me describe a similar situation to you from my world of expertise: Navy nuclear submarines. In 2001 our "sister ship" surfaced and sank a sightseeing vessel off the coast of Oahu. This was supposed to be nearly impossible, because of the multiple overlapping safety procedures in place. However, the account of the collision is a fascinating account of hurried safety procedures and multiple barely-missed chances, allowing a pinhole blind spot at the worst possible moment.
What's the point? Well, it's amazing how much we depend, not on electronics, but on well-trained human beings. The next time your flight lands, just think about your situation: some guy is manually operating the plane as it travels hundreds of miles per hour and lands on a narrow little strip of concrete in the middle of some city. In this day and age of computers and electronics! Every time you fly, you're one mental breakdown away from a "we interrupt your normal broadcast to inform you that...". But sometimes the stars align and something happens to bypass all that training and preparation.
So it doesn't surprise me that there is no "contingency plan" for the electronics being turned off. It's so crazy that it's a close cousin to "pilot goes crazy, shoots co-pilot, crashes plane". Unimaginable, up until now.
EDIT: I'm not making any statements on WHAT exactly happened, just answering the question, "Why was it possible for the pilot (or someone in the cockpit) to turn off the electronics?"
To be fair, he didn't manage to turn it all off - the Boeing engine systems were still transmitting because they're independent.
I'd say the main thing this kind of brings up is that it's ridiculous that there isn't some independent system which will always transmit a planes location. Though I'm also pretty amazed that there's no automated system to try and drop floating GPS transponders in the water when a plane goes down.
Even if we did hotglue an iPhone to the plane and it didn't survive, at least we could know where it last was before it got smashed to bits.
Granted yes, this doesn't stop the situation where the thing is accidentally or deliberately turned off. They say that with every plane crash they learn something, and more importantly they learn what steps to take so that it never happens again. I wonder if this will lead to new developments and regulations to put in some form of near-permanent tracking on commercial planes.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
EDIT: I'm not making any statements on WHAT exactly happened, just answering the question, "Why was it possible for the pilot (or someone in the cockpit) to turn off the electronics?"
I'd guess having the breaker panel in view lets you see system status as well as provides a method of troubleshooting or bypassing in-flight problems. Weigh the benefits of that against the possibility of a rogue pilot. A rogue pilot means you're already screwed, but I will grant that Air LoJack would aid search and rescue efforts after the fact.
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
You know what would be a great way to track a plane? Radioactive materials.
#weirdshitthatpopsinmyheadsometimes
I'm... pretty sure the output of that wouldn't really have the range to be useful.
Probably I didn't think of it after a practical consideration of the science or anything I just found it odd it would come bubbling up out of the morass that is my brain.
EDIT: I'm not making any statements on WHAT exactly happened, just answering the question, "Why was it possible for the pilot (or someone in the cockpit) to turn off the electronics?"
I'd guess having the breaker panel in view lets you see system status as well as provides a method of troubleshooting or bypassing in-flight problems. Weigh the benefits of that against the possibility of a rogue pilot. A rogue pilot means you're already screwed, but I will grant that Air LoJack would aid search and rescue efforts after the fact.
Also if you have a system that can't be disabled, and the system NEEDS to be disabled (say, the wiring shorts and is about to start a fire...) then you have a problem.
A) I think the Daily Mail is kind of a trashy tabloid more than a reputable news source.
2) That article is from March 19. If there was anything to it, I think they would've been all over that island by now.
C) The whole article sounds sketchy as hell.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
EDIT: I'm not making any statements on WHAT exactly happened, just answering the question, "Why was it possible for the pilot (or someone in the cockpit) to turn off the electronics?"
I'd guess having the breaker panel in view lets you see system status as well as provides a method of troubleshooting or bypassing in-flight problems. Weigh the benefits of that against the possibility of a rogue pilot. A rogue pilot means you're already screwed, but I will grant that Air LoJack would aid search and rescue efforts after the fact.
If you have a rogue pilot then all a search and rescue op will likely do is recover corpses, tracking or no
SteevLWhat can I do for you?Registered Userregular
Huh, imagine my surprise when I went to CNN's page this morning and there was a big headline that read "PING DETECTED" with China reporting it. I guess we'll see if it's a real thing or a bunch of crap soon enough.
Huh, imagine my surprise when I went to CNN's page this morning and there was a big headline that read "PING DETECTED" with China reporting it. I guess we'll see if it's a real thing or a bunch of crap soon enough.
China reported that one of its ships detected a pulsing signal of unknown origin. They do not yet know where it comes from.
CNN are the only ones jumping up and saying "yay ping detected!". Then again, CNN also had figured out the direct non-stop flight plan from Malaysia to Iran last week. CNN's reporting is shit.
I used to work on sailboats, building, maintaining, sailing (singlehand and in a crew) them.
For ~$75 you can get a water tight HDPE box with a button on it. You press that button and said box blasts out a GPS signal for 96 continuous hours. The box has a loop of nautical line (pretty much impossible to cut unless you're using a serrated blade) you put around your waist/ankle/shoulder/whatever is comfortable.
It weighs about 4 ounces.
Each boat had three. One in the aft near the tiller, one in the companion way, and one in the main cabin. You literally had to be thrown from the boat to not have access to one of these things.
I was told they could pick these signals up from a plane flying overhead, as long as they were within 25 kilometers and the box was traveling less than 10 knots.
For ~$75.
These were to be used when the main power died, because each boat has a GPS transponder which can be powered from the boat's systems for weeks.
And planes don't have this stuff?
Note: I do realize that in a catastrophic emergency you can't get access to these things. But... It's a plane. I'm talking about civilian boats.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
How far underwater does that GPS work? How much range? Remember, the whole world isn't covered by continuous satellite coverage. The ocean is really really big.
Really, I would be much more surprised if we find this plane than if we don't, considering the circumstances.
How far underwater does that GPS work? How much range? Remember, the whole world isn't covered by continuous satellite coverage. The ocean is really really big.
Depends on the satellite, but the orbital period for most GPS satellites is 10-15 hours. Lower stuff like RADARSAT is 100 minutes, but of course its field of view is more limited.
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How does that even happen? For god's sake - my dad's boat has an EPIRB that will automatically deploy if his boat sinks and will be detected anywhere in the world.
I'm feeling more and more like we'll never know what happened. I mean, maybe someday someone will stumble across / parts of it at random, but it really feels like nobody has a fucking clue what / where this plane went down and they never will.
Which...is scary because if it was a design flaw, we might not know until another airliner goes down.
I don't know, it would seem that nowadays it wouldn't be TOO challenging to get a continuously broadcasting GPS system onto a plane which would detach and float if the plane landed in water. This wasn't some old junker of a plane, it was pretty darn new.
A: Distress beacon with GPS
B: 10-12 lifeboats(Depending on the size of ship I was on) each with GPS and radios
C: 18-24 liferafts, with signalling devices(which I'll get to)
The lifeboats and rafts were, of course, painted orange for maximum visibility.
What signaling devices did we have?
A mirror
3 Parachute flares
3 Smoke flares
3 Regular flares
In each boat and raft
With all of this, we still had explicit emergency directions for the first 72 hours in the event of an emergency, in addition to supplies I think out to a week? It's been a while now, I haven't had my weekly drills where we're reminded of all of this.
Even though we had advanced electronic signaling devices and a goddamn insane amount of signaling devices when you put it all together(12 boats and 24 rafts with all of that in them), and sailing primarily only a tiny small bit off the coast normally(In 3 years I did... 2 Atlantic crossings as just straight across and 1 Pacific crossing) we still were drilled with an assumption of around 72 hours before someone found us and help could arrive.
That depends.
Was the iPhone being held in the death grip at the time?
Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear.
The point I was trying to make wasn't "Why doesn't the plane have this shit"
rather: "Holy shit even if we have 14 GPS transponders floating around 5 nautical miles from shore we still give them damn parachute flares, because we're not sure we can find them within a week?!"
#weirdshitthatpopsinmyheadsometimes
We can put gps equipment in an artillery shell and launch it for miles, its not actually hard at all.
Its just costly and would be very very rarely needed due to the other systems in place and the rate of plane crashes.
I'm... pretty sure the output of that wouldn't really have the range to be useful.
I'm just one guy, so take this with a grain of salt, but let me describe a similar situation to you from my world of expertise: Navy nuclear submarines. In 2001 our "sister ship" surfaced and sank a sightseeing vessel off the coast of Oahu. This was supposed to be nearly impossible, because of the multiple overlapping safety procedures in place. However, the account of the collision is a fascinating account of hurried safety procedures and multiple barely-missed chances, allowing a pinhole blind spot at the worst possible moment.
What's the point? Well, it's amazing how much we depend, not on electronics, but on well-trained human beings. The next time your flight lands, just think about your situation: some guy is manually operating the plane as it travels hundreds of miles per hour and lands on a narrow little strip of concrete in the middle of some city. In this day and age of computers and electronics! Every time you fly, you're one mental breakdown away from a "we interrupt your normal broadcast to inform you that...". But sometimes the stars align and something happens to bypass all that training and preparation.
So it doesn't surprise me that there is no "contingency plan" for the electronics being turned off. It's so crazy that it's a close cousin to "pilot goes crazy, shoots co-pilot, crashes plane". Unimaginable, up until now.
EDIT: I'm not making any statements on WHAT exactly happened, just answering the question, "Why was it possible for the pilot (or someone in the cockpit) to turn off the electronics?"
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I did not know that. That's pretty rad.
To be fair, he didn't manage to turn it all off - the Boeing engine systems were still transmitting because they're independent.
I'd say the main thing this kind of brings up is that it's ridiculous that there isn't some independent system which will always transmit a planes location. Though I'm also pretty amazed that there's no automated system to try and drop floating GPS transponders in the water when a plane goes down.
Granted yes, this doesn't stop the situation where the thing is accidentally or deliberately turned off. They say that with every plane crash they learn something, and more importantly they learn what steps to take so that it never happens again. I wonder if this will lead to new developments and regulations to put in some form of near-permanent tracking on commercial planes.
I'd guess having the breaker panel in view lets you see system status as well as provides a method of troubleshooting or bypassing in-flight problems. Weigh the benefits of that against the possibility of a rogue pilot. A rogue pilot means you're already screwed, but I will grant that Air LoJack would aid search and rescue efforts after the fact.
Probably I didn't think of it after a practical consideration of the science or anything I just found it odd it would come bubbling up out of the morass that is my brain.
Also if you have a system that can't be disabled, and the system NEEDS to be disabled (say, the wiring shorts and is about to start a fire...) then you have a problem.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2584123/Revealed-Malaysian-Airlines-pilot-high-security-US-base-Diego-Garcia-programmed-homemade-flight-simulator-deleted-data-just-taking-control-missing-plane.html
#1 - Source is the Daily Mail aka Daily Fail
#2 - It's April 1st.
I'm highly dubious.
That article is from March 19th. Pretty sure that last week the FBI said they haven't found anything that raises any flags for them so far.
At this point, I'll be surprised if they ever find this plane.
2) That article is from March 19. If there was anything to it, I think they would've been all over that island by now.
C) The whole article sounds sketchy as hell.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI
Hooboy.
I wished Robert Stack was still alive.
CNN has a 4-minute segment dedicated to discussing this exciting development.
It's a shame that they may never find out what happened to this thing.
If you have a rogue pilot then all a search and rescue op will likely do is recover corpses, tracking or no
China reported that one of its ships detected a pulsing signal of unknown origin. They do not yet know where it comes from.
CNN are the only ones jumping up and saying "yay ping detected!". Then again, CNN also had figured out the direct non-stop flight plan from Malaysia to Iran last week. CNN's reporting is shit.
I used to work on sailboats, building, maintaining, sailing (singlehand and in a crew) them.
For ~$75 you can get a water tight HDPE box with a button on it. You press that button and said box blasts out a GPS signal for 96 continuous hours. The box has a loop of nautical line (pretty much impossible to cut unless you're using a serrated blade) you put around your waist/ankle/shoulder/whatever is comfortable.
It weighs about 4 ounces.
Each boat had three. One in the aft near the tiller, one in the companion way, and one in the main cabin. You literally had to be thrown from the boat to not have access to one of these things.
I was told they could pick these signals up from a plane flying overhead, as long as they were within 25 kilometers and the box was traveling less than 10 knots.
For ~$75.
These were to be used when the main power died, because each boat has a GPS transponder which can be powered from the boat's systems for weeks.
And planes don't have this stuff?
Note: I do realize that in a catastrophic emergency you can't get access to these things. But... It's a plane. I'm talking about civilian boats.
Really, I would be much more surprised if we find this plane than if we don't, considering the circumstances.
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