Possible debris spotted by Vietnamese navy planes, but they’ll have to wait until dawn to ascertain whether the debris is from the missing plane.
Yes, but they are ALSO trained to give first priority to flying/controlling the airplane. One of the reasons for the black boxes is to capture and record what’s happening in the event the pilots are too busy to report a problem on the radio. So, for certain types of problems no, the pilots wouldn’t be talking on the radio.
Complete power failures for reasons other than explosions have occurred. The emergency backup power is very minimal and primarily for keeping the flight controls operative, the radios in such situations may not have the power for sufficient range to contact anyone.
Exploded airplanes usually leave rather extensive debris fields, even over water, because all those floatable objects you mentioned earlier are no longer contained in a solid fuselage. An oil slick with no debris visible is more consistent, IMHO, with an intact airplane sinking at sea, taking all the interior floatables down with it to the bottom.
Of course, this then leads to the question of how an aircraft like that came to sink while intact. If the impact with the water was mild enough to prevent breakup why didn’t survivors attempt to leave the airplane? As the Hudson River incident shows it does take some minutes for an intact airplane to sink, sufficient time to evacuate the entire airplane assuming the passengers and crew are still alive, conscious, and able to move.
I suppose one could propose some sort of toxin that incapacitated the occupants, but then how did the aircraft make a controlled landing on the water? Because it’s going to take a human at the controls to pull off a landing like that, and even then, success is rare.
That is explained by the transponders having very limited range underwater. If the rafts weren’t launched the signals didn’t happen. The airplane’s and black boxes’ pingers might be pinging away merrily but if they’re under enough water no one on the surface will be able to detect them.
Nothing that I can think of. I mean, there are things that can knock out the electrical system, and things that can knock out the crew, but the biggest issues with that scenario is a successful water landing which is unlikely. Especially at night, which is when I understand this airplane disappeared.
No, it won’t. There will be some brief period of time during which you have “useful consciousness”. Flight crews are trained to reach for supplemental oxygen at the first sign of dropping pressure, and above a certain altitude the pilot flying is required to have his/her oxygen mask on the entire time whether it’s needed or not, just in case such an emergency happens. Sure, the passengers are likely to pass out (not everyone is going to get their emergency mask on in time) but at least one pilot should avoid incapacitation. He or she can then descend to an altitude with sufficient oxygen for everyone else on board to regain consciousness.
Helios Airways Flight 522 was a depressurization accident. Even then, the autopilot continued to fly the airplane for a considerable time afterward, basically until the fuel ran out. Even during that accident, a flight attendant regained consciousness long enough to get off a few mayday calls and attempt to gain control of the airplane. So yes, depressurization can certainly cause a crash but it won’t be instantaneous. Radar should be able to track the airplane for awhile after it goes silent.
Smaller in are, perhaps, but a nosedown like that is going to result in the airplane disintegrating on impact, you’ll have a slick of lightweight debris on the water.
Well, yeah, there is a precedent for hijackers taking out the flight crew of an airliner then flying it somewhere else for Evil Purposes. Maybe someone tried that and the airplane crashed, like Flight 93 on September 11, 2001. That’s called terrorism and it’s one reason why the passengers, particularly the ones traveling on stolen passports, are being investigated.
What we really need is to find the airplane and the black boxes. Without those no one really knows what the heck happened.
Would a plane that suffered a catastrophic failure at altitude (i.e. exploded) leave a noticeable oil slick? I would think that as the fuel sprayed down from altitude, it would become so diffuse that it wouldn’t, or even be mostly consumed in the explosion. So if the slick is from the plane, that would lead me be to believe it hit relatively intact.
Ethiopian 961. Not a success.
We shouldn’t need to do that. We have the tech for continuous satellite transmissions of data streams, and we even use it for more mundane equipment condition reports (we even pretty much knew what happened to AF447 because of that alone, without the boxes). Why not add a few data channels and be able to get to work, with full info, immediately without having to search for a couple of boxes in a debris field?
I agree with your analysis of possible causes, and unless there is a floating-debris field that just hasn’t been spotted yet, then a bombing of just the right extent to disable the plane without breaking it up, or a failed hijack, or potentially a crew suicide/murder (it’s happened before) look like the only plausible causes to me, too.
Update: A door may have been spotted on the surface. But just that, if even that, not a debris field.
If the reason no debris field has been spotted yet is that it was widely dispersed, that means a breakup at altitude.
Even if we did that, analysis of the actual pieces of a crashed airliner can yield valuable information that simply isn’t recorded by a black box, so we’d still wind up looking for as much of a crashed airplane as we possible could.
That is incredibly depressing, but at least in that thread the conspiracy theory seems (ironically) to be the work of a lone nut.
Huh? That makes no sense at all. Especially because asking for a cite goes counterintuitive to the claim being made. A bullet-proof claim.
Is this still true, post 9/11? What good reason would a pilot have for turning off a transponder?
If the transponder is experiencing some sort of fault that results in a bad signal or some sort of interference that’s one reason. Another reason is an electrical problem in the airplane were some systems have to be shut down to prevent a short, fire, or other hazard.
If it’s putting out a bogus signal that is distracting ATC, who would then request it. More often, it’s just the altitude signal that’s on the fritz, not the 4-digit code itself, so there’s a switch position that lets you turn off the altitude signal alone.
How’s this for speculation - the door is off floating by itself because it separated from the airplane at altitude (how, who knows, maybe some nut forced it open) and butterflied its way down to a soft splash. The sudden decompression rendered everyone on board unconscious, including the caught-by-surprise crew who couldn’t get their oxygen masks on in time. They slumped over the yokes, forcing a dive, and the plane powered in.
You can’t force open the door at altitude (unless your name is Superman). But some other sort of catastrophe could certainly lead to the door detaching.
It shouldn’t be possible normally, no, but maybe there’s a way to overcome the latch or hinges (explosively?). Just guessing here.
Doors have opened in flight before (United 811) due to mechanical failures.
I always turn the transponder off when I’m on the ground and turn it on when I’m ready to request clearance for takeoff.
Well, if you’ve got a bomb, the door is really irrelevant. Just blow a hole anywhere you like in the fuselage and you’re on your way to Paradise.
But the reason you can’t open the door at altitude is because of the air pressure differential between the cabin and the outside, not because of the latches or hinges, which are secondary.
In the case of United 811, the cause was due to poorly-designed cargo doors on the 747 which opened outwards, combined with a faulty latching mechanism that allowed the door to come unlatched during flight, whereupon it blew open.
The cabin door (on the 747 and the 777 and pretty much all jetliners) is a plug door which seals itself against the fuselage due to air pressure.
There is. And it’s unconscionable not to make use of it. They literally serve no other purpose than to accurately identify people from another country. This is a gigantic WTF. And it’s double troubling because it involves 2 countries. China is more than capable of availing themselves of the technology.
That’s a cargo door that opens straight out like a car door. A passenger door seals itself to the hull by pressurization. you couldn’t open it if you tried. They open in then slant at an angle and open out. Even at sea level with no pressurization they would open out and then forward. The slip stream would keep them closed.
There’s a fourth: The detonation of an on board explosive device.
That would explain why the plane did not get off a MayDay before it apparently crashed.
highly unlikely. the plane sends continuous satellite data on it’s condition through the ACARS. system.
Highly unlikely,why?
If an explosive device, either carried on board deliberately or being transported knowingly or unknowingly detonated, it could immediately disable all electrical power to the aircraft’s systems. Assuming that it caused the plane to disintegrate inflight and assuming that sat system was active (which appears not to have been the case for reasons yet unknown) then the plane would fallen into the sea.
Also, ACARS failures, while rare, are not completely unknown.
An examplehttp://www.37000feet.com/report/1002409/A320-captain-reports-an-ACARS-failure-en-route-at-FL360-At-about