Six miles and two days

The wreckage of AirAsia flight 8501 was found a mere six miles from the point of last contact with the aircraft, yet it took over two days to locate it. So here's a note to the conspiracy buffs who can't figure out why searchers still haven't found any trace of MH370: If it takes two days to find a downed aircraft when you have a pretty good idea where to look, imagine the challenge of searching thousands of square miles of deep ocean, in a region of strong currents and high winds, days, weeks and now months after the plane disappeared. And they're searching a projected flight path which is something slightly better than a wild guess. It will be astounding if MH370 is ever located.

I read today that they are still searching for MH370 in an area of roughly 80.000 square miles.
That is a slightly larger area than the state of Nebraska.

Remember this?

People watched the plane sink in the lake in 100 feet of water, but it took them 30 years to find it. It's not like finding a needle in a haystack with MH370. It's like finding a buried needle in a hay field.

I bet someday they will find MH370 a long way from where they have been looking.

Pakistan keeps coming up. Now that theory seems to be in relegated to the Enguirer and Globe.

US planes are required by law to carry tracking devices, many overseas airlines do not have that requirement, no tracking device makes it difficult if not impossible to find a plane in the open ocean. In this case, the flight corridor that this particular plane went down in is one of the busiest in the world as is the strip of ocean it went down in. The current paths in the Java sea are controlled by the monsoon, November to March currents flow east with the prevailing winds and there is so much fishing traffic, offshore oil related traffic and cargo traffic that it is highly unlikely something such as this plane debri would go undetected, most vessels are dodging debris this time of year in those congested waters.

(quoted from post at 16:58:20 12/30/14) The wreckage of AirAsia flight 8501 was found a mere six miles from the point of last contact with the aircraft, yet it took over two days to locate it. So here's a note to the conspiracy buffs who can't figure out why searchers still haven't found any trace of MH370: If it takes two days to find a downed aircraft when you have a pretty good idea where to look, imagine the challenge of searching thousands of square miles of deep ocean, in a region of strong currents and high winds, days, weeks and now months after the plane disappeared. And they're searching a projected flight path which is something slightly better than a wild guess. It will be astounding if MH370 is ever located.

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MH370 could be almost anywhere that they had the range to fly. I recall seeing a map with a circled area that with fuel remaining when it disappeared the plane could have reached. It included all of India, part of Pakistan and Krakistan, most of China and south east Asia, lots of islands and a very large chunk of deep ocean. I doubt it will ever be found.

I watched an interview with a former air crash investigator. Apparently the crew requested an altitude change and 4 minutes later when ATC called to give them permission there was no response and the plane disappeared from radar. The reason for the delay was 7 other aircraft in the vicinity. As to the time required to find it you have to take into account the time it disappeared, daylight remaining at that time, response time (assets in the vicinity) and weather. I don't think they did too bad but the news media is going to jump on that so they have something for the talking heads to say. What the talking heads should be looking at it the Air Asia plane that overshot a runway less than 24 hours after this one went down and the safety record for airlines out of that area of the world in general.

For anyone interested look up "air crash investigations" on youtube. They had a series of programs that walked through who, what when and where and the results of air accidents world wide. They cover the time needed to find downed aircraft in some of them.

Rick

Not sure what you mean by "tracking devices". Virtually all commercial aircraft are required to carry emergency locator transmitters (ELTs) and radar transponders. In fact, the US is behind many other countries in that it does not mandate 406 MHz ELTs which can be received by satellites. It is assumed that no ELT transmission was received from MH370 because the aircraft's ELTs are underwater. MH370's transponders were not transmitting once contact was lost with the aircraft.

The ADS-B collision avoidance system, which transmits aircraft position to other aircraft is not required for aircraft operating in the US.

What is not required by either the FAA or ICAO is a system that constantly transmits position and other telemetry to ground stations via satellite. Such a system, had it been installed and operating aboard MH370, would have eliminated the guesswork of locating where the aircraft went down and might even have eliminated the need to recover the aircraft's "black boxes". The need for such a system has been discussed since the crash of Air France flight 447 in 2009. The FAA and ICAO have been historically reluctant to mandate expensive upgrades to the aviation industry, which is why they're still just talking about it five years later.

ACARS transmissions for MH370 narrowed the aircraft's flight path to the southern Indian Ocean. There is no evidence to support the theory it went north into India, Pakistan or China. These are, by the way, regions with good radar coverage; it's unlikely a large aircraft could have flown to Pakistan without being detected.

(quoted from post at 05:49:08 12/31/14) ACARS transmissions for MH370 narrowed the aircraft's flight path to the southern Indian Ocean. There is no evidence to support the theory it went north into India, Pakistan or China. These are, by the way, regions with good radar coverage; it's unlikely a large aircraft could have flown to Pakistan without being detected.

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Mark I never said it went into areas with dry land, only that they showed a map of where it could have gone.

As far as "good" radar is concerned. We developed and deployed a missile in the early 80's, no stealth stuff here that is still being used today called the Tomahawk/Cruise missile. It get to a target by flying low enough to avoid radar. In the mid 80's the 2 countries with the best radar and most coverage was the US and Soviet Union. A kid in Germany took off in a light airplane from Germany and landed undetected in Red Square.

That area of the world actually has pretty poor radar systems depending on the country and large areas with no radar coverage at all (large ocean areas).

MH370 apparently dropped low enough to avoid radar after the last radio contact. They did know the last direction of travel when contact was lost but they have no idea what way it went after it disappeared from radar or how long it stayed in the air. Whoever was flying it may have turned 180 degrees from last contact. I really don't think it went over any main land area at low altitude because people on the ground would have noticed it and it would have been reported by now. To reach Pakistan or Krakistan would have required flying over India at 500 feet or so. Heavily populated India. Most of the South East Asia area is also heavily populated too. So I'm sure it's in the water someplace. Just may not be in the Indian Ocean. Could be in the south west Pacific area too. Last known direction of travel and actual direction of travel may not even be close.

The entire airline industry fights adding anything to an aircraft that ads weight. Extra weight cost them money and cuts into bottom line. As long as they can lobby congress they will fight it. I don't agree with the system but that's how it is. They could mount existing systems that would allow any commercial aircraft to be tracked via satellite anywhere in the world. Wouldn't have to survive a crash. Just be able to track. Once they know where a plane went down they can recover the black boxes to help figure out what happened. Heck if they programed a system right it could transmit flight data and cockpit voice. It could then be digitally compressed to minimize storage and saved or programed to be deleted at say 2 weeks. Then recovering the black boxes wouldn't be a big deal.

Rick

>They did know the last direction of travel when contact was lost but they have no idea what way it went after it disappeared from radar or how long it stayed in the air.

Not true. Early on in the search they did not know the flight path. But once they were able to triangulate the satellite transmissions it was determined the flight traveled into the southern Indian Ocean. Because the satellite communications system was operating in essentially a standby mode, it only transmitted every 30 minutes. Which means investigators haven't been able to pinpoint the exact time it quit flying, but evidence supports the theory that it flew until it ran out of fuel.

I think I heard that the pilot wanted to change course. Not sure if traffic control gave permission.

Hopefully changes will take place. Satellite tracking, Black box deploy and float giving off a signal, location.

One would only hope there were a weather radar to show wind sheer.