Malaysia Airlines 'loses contact with plane' (and search effort updates)

[Mr. Gibs]

Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with a plane travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 239 people on board.

The airline said in a statement that flight MH370 disappeared at 02:40 local time on Saturday (18:40 GMT on Friday).

It was expected to land in Beijing at 06:30 (22:30 GMT).

"Malaysia Airlines is currently working with the authorities who have activated their search and rescue team to locate the aircraft," the carrier said.

The Boeing B777-200 aircraft was carrying 227 passengers, including two children, and 12 crew members.

It went missing two hours after taking off from Kuala Lumpur.

It was lost in airspace controlled by Vietnam, China's Xinhua state news agency said.

The aircraft did not enter airspace controlled by China and did not make contact with Chinese controllers, the agency added.

Malaysia Airlines has told the BBC it will be holding a press conference later on Saturday.

The airline is the national carrier of Malaysia and one of Asia's largest, flying nearly 37,000 passengers daily to some 80 destinations worldwide.

Source: BBC news

---

Not looking good, by now the plane is probably out of fuel so it's looking more and more like a crash. :no:

[Praetor]

:/

[The Evil Overlord]

:(

Unfortunately, when some news reporting events like this, often end up in reporting said plane crashed, if this is the case, I hope it was quick, with no suffering for the people on board.

(Reading this reminded me of that plane that was reported on the news, lost contact, 2 days later, they started recovering debris from a sea or ocean, I forget where, think it was an air france plane on that occasion)

[Mr. Gibs]

:(

Unfortunately, when some news reporting events like this, often end up in reporting said plane crashed, if this is the case, I hope it was quick, with no suffering for the people on board.

(Reading this reminded me of that plane that was reported on the news, lost contact, 2 days later, they started recovering debris from a sea or ocean, I forget where, think it was an air france plane on that occasion)

Air France 447.

And yeah , modern planes have a lot of communication / position equipment on board. The fact that nobody picked up the plane on radar isn't a good sign :no:

No bad weather reported en-route either:

[einsteinbqat]

Yes. Air France flight 447 en route from Rio to Paris.

 

:(

Unfortunately, when some news reporting events like this, often end up in reporting said plane crashed, if this is the case, I hope it was quick, with no suffering for the people on board.

(Reading this reminded me of that plane that was reported on the news, lost contact, 2 days later, they started recovering debris from a sea or ocean, I forget where, think it was an air france plane on that occasion)

[Mr. Gibs]

AVHerald article:

An Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200, registration 9M-MRO performing fliht MH-370 from Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) to Beijing (China) with 227 passengers and 12 crew, was enroute at FL350 over the Gulf of Thailand in contact with Subang Center (Malaysia) when radar and radio contact was reported lost with the aircraft at around 02:40L (18:40Z Mar 7th). The aircraft would have run out of fuel by now, there have been no reports of the aircraft turning up on any airport in the region.

The airline confirmed the aircraft is missing, a search and rescue operation has been initiated. Subang Air Traffic Control reported at 02:40 local Malaysian time, that radar and radio contact with the aircraft had been lost.

Search missions have been launched along the estimated flight track of the aircraft from Gulf of Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia to China (South China Sea).

According to The Aviation Herald's radar data the aircraft was last regularly seen at 17:22Z (01:22L) about half way between Kuala Lumpur and Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam) at FL350 over the Gulf of Thailand about 260nm northnortheast of Kuala Lumpur 40 minutes into the flight, followed by anomalies in the radar data of the aircraft over the next minute (the anomalies may be related to the aircraft but could also be caused by the aircraft leaving the range of the receiver).

Aviation sources in China report that radar data suggest a steep and sudden descent of the aircraft, during which the track of the aircraft changed from 024 degrees to 333 degrees.

Source: http://avherald.com/h?article=4710c69b&opt=1

[Ryoken]

Radio and Satellite communication loss is surprising.

Loss of it on Radar is not, as outside of military bases, airports, and other strategic areas, most radar coverage is pitiful. There's better weather radar coverage in most regions than actual radar able to track aircraft with any degree of accuracy, if at all.

 

 

That said, this looks bad :/

[Mr. Gibs]

Radio and Satellite communication loss is surprising.

Loss of it on Radar is not, as outside of military bases, airports, and other strategic areas, most radar coverage is pitiful. There's better weather radar coverage in most regions than actual radar able to track aircraft with any degree of accuracy, if at all.

There was radar coverage near where it went missing.

The flights path took it near Ho Chi Minh city, which has radar coverage. Then it would have been into China airspace which has radar coverage too. But nobody has seen the plane since it disappeared from KL's radar coverage.

Then you have the no communication whatsoever.

[einsteinbqat]

I do not believe that any good news will come out of this. They will surely start looking for the black box soon.

 

I have always been wondering why they do not include any sort of floating device with the black box. Two-third of this planet is water. Should a plane crash or disappear, chances of a black box being searched for in waters are much higher than on land.

[The Evil Overlord]

I do not believe that any good news will come out of this. They will surely start looking for the black box soon.

 

I have always been wondering why they do not include any sort of floating device with the black box. Two-third of this planet is water. Should a plane crash or disappear, chances of a black box being searched for in waters are much higher than on land.

Where they're stored, inflatables would burst against twisted metal wreckage, and lighter than water devices wouldn't work if the tail of the plane went under mostly intact, due to it's weight it would take the compartment for the recorders down with it

[einsteinbqat]

True. Inflatables would not be a solution, that is a given. However, a low density device could be something worth looking into, no? I mean, yes, if the black box is trapped in whatever place it is, it will stay there, but if gets free, and manage to go up towards the surface, would it not be better than not being able to ever retrieve it because it just somewhere on the ocean/sea floor?

 

Where they're stored, inflatables would burst against twisted metal wreckage, and lighter than water devices wouldn't work if the tail of the plane went under mostly intact, due to it's weight it would take the compartment for the recorders down with it

[The Evil Overlord]

True. Inflatables would not be a solution, that is a given. However, a low density device could be something worth looking into, no? I mean, yes, if the black box is trapped in whatever place it is, it will stay there, but if gets free, and manage to go up towards the surface, would it not be better than not being able to ever retrieve it because it just somewhere on the ocean/sea floor?

I think they use some sort of low frequency modulation locators nowadays I could be wrong about this..

 

edit oops sorry, was on mobile and hit like instead of quote (I'm tired)

[Mr. Gibs]

Update: Apparently Vietnamese SAR (Search and Rescue) have detected the airplane's transmitter 120 nautical miles SW of Cape Ca Mau (Vietnam's southern most point), in the middle of the ocean.

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=vi&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fvnexpress.net%2Ftin-tuc%2Fthe-gioi%2Fdo-duoc-tin-hieu-may-bay-malaysia-cach-mui-ca-mau-120-hai-ly-2960870.html

[Mr. Gibs]

AVHerald confirms ELT signal has been detected. No other reports yet.

EDIT

Now it appears the ELT signal may have been a mistake.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSL3N0M505Z20140308?irpc=932

[Mr. Gibs]

http://my.news.yahoo.com/mas-aircraft-goes-missing--says-airline-023820132.html

UPDATE [12:37]: Tuoi Tre, a leading daily in Vietnam, reports that the Vietnamese Navy has confirmed the plane crashed into the ocean. According to Navy Admiral Ngo Van Phat, Commander of the Region 5, military radar recorded that the plane crashed into the sea at a location 153 miles South of Phu Quoc island.

[jasondefaoite]

Strange. Once the flight crossed the Gulf of Thailand, it should have been over land for the rest of the flight.

 

Edit: Correction, so the Vietnam navy are saying it crashed into the Gulf of Thailand? I thought it was already 2 hours into the flight? Should have crossed the sea in that time.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

I've been following this story on Twitter and Reddit. It looks like Vietnam has confirmed that the plane has crashed into the ocean. There was no mayday which probably means the cabin depressurized and the crew and passengers blacked out. Hopefully, they didn't suffer when the plane went down. The harsh reality is that some of the crew suffocated to death when the plane went under water. May they all rest in peace.

 

EDIT: http://my.news.yahoo.com/mas-aircraft-goes-missing--says-airline-023820132.html

[einsteinbqat]

The question now is, ?How did it happen?? 

[mudslag]

The question now is, ?How did it happen?? 

 

 

Prob like most other plane crashes, something broke or someone screwed up.

[Daniel Tablas]

This guy was supposed to be on that flight, luckily he missed it: https://twitter.com/KaidenDL/status/442118212235177984

[riahc3]

Hello,

I've been following this story on Twitter and Reddit. It looks like Vietnam has confirmed that the plane has crashed into the ocean. There was no mayday which probably means the cabin depressurized and the crew and passengers blacked out. Hopefully, they didn't suffer when the plane went down. The harsh reality is that some of the crew suffocated to death when the plane went under water. May they all rest in peace.

 

EDIT: http://my.news.yahoo.com/mas-aircraft-goes-missing--says-airline-023820132.html

I think plane should have some kind of autopilot safety feature.

If on manual, a pilot should touch the some kind of confirmation button stating that the pilot is still technically there and active

If on autopilot (like most), there should be some kind of confirmation button still stating that a pilot is aware of the situation of the flight.

Should one of these fail, the plane should try to make a emergency landing, calculating the nearest land possibly. If it calculates it doesn't have enough fuel, it should try to land as horizontal as possible on water, like trying to skip a rock.

Since there was no mayday, like said, it seems everyone fainted onboard.

[spenser.d]

Hello,

I think plane should have some kind of autopilot safety feature.

If on manual, a pilot should touch the some kind of confirmation button stating that the pilot is still technically there and active

If on autopilot (like most), there should be some kind of confirmation button still stating that a pilot is aware of the situation of the flight.

Should one of these fail, the plane should try to make a emergency landing, calculating the nearest land possibly. If it calculates it doesn't have enough fuel, it should try to land as horizontal as possible on water, like trying to skip a rock.

Since there was no mayday, like said, it seems everyone fainted onboard.

That would be a hugely complicated undertaking to solve such a rare case.

[macoman]

I always want to know why at this time of advanced technology and the 21st century, the passenger aircraft has not been updated physically to make it some kind of waterproof or crash proof or making something that allow the people on board able to survive in the event that the plane is not working. Jet fighting pilots can eject themselves when the plane is about to crash, why not create something similar to passenger aircraft?

[riahc3]

Hello,

That would be a hugely complicated undertaking to solve such a rare case.

We built PCs. I think we can do something like this ;)

 

I always want to know why at this time of advanced technology, the passenger aircraft has not been updated to make it some kind of waterproof or crash proof or making something that allow the people on board able to survive in the event that the plane is not working. Jet fighting pilots can eject themselves when the plane is about to crash, why not create something similar to passenger aircraft?

Problably a weight and/or cost issue. Just so you get a idea, a space shuttle more or less costs about 2 billion dollars.

[macoman]

Problably a weight and/or cost issue. Just so you get a idea, a space shuttle more or less costs about 2 billion dollars.

Yeah but not even the space shuttle is crash proof, there is probably a way to make it safe in the event the plane does not respond... The people that make airplanes has to figure it out.