Before we discuss about the facts and figures regarding missing Malaysian Jetlinerwe need to point out about how a plane is exactly tracked and how it communicates with the ground and the satellites:
Secondary Radar and Text Updates
Air traffic controllers know about a plane through its secondary radar. This requests information from the plane’s transponder. A plane may also use radio or satellite signals to send regular traffic updates through ACARS, the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System.
Primary Radar
Primary radar sends out radio signals and listens for echoes that bounce off objects in the sky. Primary radar does is not dependent on plane’s transponder
Satellite Communications
Even if ACARS is turned off, the plane still sends a “keep-alive” signal which can be received by satellites. The signal is very preliminary to indicate any kind of location. Nevertheless, it can help to narrow down the plane’s position.
Missing Malaysian Jetliner: What happened so far:
Event: Takeoff
The jet, took off from KLIA at 12.40am on Saturday, carried 239 passengers and crew on board and was en route from KL to Beijing. The flight had been scheduled to land at 6:30 a.m. in Beijing. All the communication system was working at the time of takeoff.
Event: ACARS stopped (time unknown)
Shortly after takeoff, plane’s Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) was shut off
Event: Transponder inactive at around 1:30 a.m.
Transponder, an automated electronic message which sends out so-called “squawks” to radar systems about the plane’s flight number, height, speed and heading, was shut-off.
Event: Voice check-in (time unknown)
Voice check-in happened probably at the same time when the transponder was turned off. Somebody from the plane’s cockpit made a voice check-in with air traffic controllers when the airliner was leaving Malaysian airspace and entering Vietnamese airspace. “All right, good night” were the final words heard from the cockpit
Event: Detection by Military radar at 2:40 a.m.
Though the plane is not transmitting information radars are able to detect a plane in the air. According to a Malaysian Air Force, military radar tracked the plane over the island of Pulau Perak, in the Strait of Malacca.
Event: Satellite ‘handshakes’8:11 a.m.
A satellite tracked the plane at 8:11 a.m., more than seven hours after takeoff. This ping came from Rolls Royce engines.This data doesn’t give much information except registering the presence of the plane. The picture below summarizes the events and reconstructed paths of the plane based on that:
Based on the satellite data and the angle from which the plane sent it, two arcs have been constructed. Very interestingly one of the arc runs from the southern border of Kazakhstan in Central Asia to northern Thailand. This arc passes over number of hot spots of global insurgency and highly militarized areas. The other arc spreads from near Jakarta to the Indian Ocean, roughly 1,000 miles off the west coast of Australia.
Many expert agencies are having their own independent investigations. Few such opinions are placed blow:
CNN analysis: Report: Plane took 1 of 2 paths
Malaysian Airline Missing Flight 370 Conspiracy Theory Continues
Missing Malaysian Jetliner :Is it a technology Failure?
In this area of technology it is difficult to believe that a plane can simply vanish in the thin air. But it has already happened. Is it a technology failure? It is actually not. Deployment of technology is a function of many factors like cost, logistics, levels of automation that is comfortable to human etc.
On top of that, airline safety and security standards are always developed by watching the mistakes. “The book of rules is written in blood,” Hamlin an expert said, “Many of the rules were written because people discovered how things could go wrong that were unknown before.” But, he strongly advocates the use of satellite technology for real-time tracking of planes and crucial systems. It’s the best technology but definitely costly.
Another important factor here, Malaysia Air didn’t subscribe to a popular Boeing add-on: a maintenance program to beam real-time information to the Chicago-based planemaker, said a person familiar with the jetliner. Boeing compiles the data and sends maintenance alerts to participants in its Airplane Health Management program.
Having said that, missing Malaysian Jetliner’s interrupted Acars data feed indicates intervention by “someone who knows the system on the airplane,” Waldock said. “That has to be the crew or someone who’s intimately familiar with how a 777 operates.” “Under normal circumstances, in flight you would never shut them off unless you wanted to hide,” said Denny Kelly, a former airline pilot who runs accident-investigation consultant Kelly-James & Associates in Dallas. “Information from the airplane can be a lifeline.”
Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with Virginia-based consultant Teal Group, said practical limits exist to the redundancies that can be built into aircraft communications. “How many more back-up systems and ancillary systems do you want?” Aboulafia said. “If someone wants to destroy the plane, they can destroy the plane.”
Missing Malaysian Jetliner, Possibilities and probabilities: argument and counter-arguments
A catastrophic structural/mechanical/electrical failure
Given the Rolls-Royce engines long history and impressive safety record, experts suggest that it is very unlikely that there was any engine failure. In fact, the satellite pings which recorded plane’s last location have come from Rolls-Royce engines only.
Loss of both engines is theoretically possible in this case, but Hamilton, an expert said the plane could glide for up to 20 minutes, giving pilots plenty of time for the pilots to make an emergency call. During January 2009, US Airways A320 lost both of its engines after taking off from LaGuardia Airport, New York. Capt. Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger still had plenty of communications with air traffic controllers before ending the six-minute flight in the Hudson River. Even with engine loss, there was proper established communications.
So far as the structural integrity is concerned, the major culprit of structural weakness is frequent pressurization and depressurization of the cabin for takeoff and landing. During April 2011, a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 made an emergency landing shortly after takeoff from due to raptured fuselage, causing a 5-foot tear. Such a rupture is less likely for the Airlines fly the 777 on longer distances. Fewer takeoffs and landings puts less stress on the air frame. “It’s not like this was Southwest Airlines doing 10 flights a day,” Hamilton, an expert said. ”There’s nothing to suggest there would be any fatigue issues.”
Boeing 777 has a very good safety record. Since June 1995, 777s have made a total of almost five million flights. Malaysia Airlines has 15 Boeing 777-200ER jets in its fleet; more than a thousand fly worldwide, 422 of them of the exact 777-200ER model. Therefore, catastrophic failures are very unlikely here.
Bad weather
These planes are designed to fly through most severe storms. However there are exceptions. In June 2009, an Air France flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed over the Atlantic Ocean during a bad storm. There was ice built up on its airspeed indicators which was giving false readings. This false reading coupled with bad decisions by the pilots made the plane crash. All 228 passengers and crew aboard died. However, for this missing Malaysian Jetliner, clear skies and calm weathers were reported throughout the flight.
Pilot’s Mistake
One school of thought says that the pilots might have taken the plane off autopilot. Subsequently, the plane might have gone too far off the course and pilots didn’t realize it until it was too late. Interestingly, the plane could have flown for another five or six hours from its point of last contact taking it up to 3,000 miles away. In this situation, the location of the plane could have been picked by the radars of various countries. The actual case it didn’t happen at all.
A bomb
This can be a possibility as several such cases have happened in the past. There was a case of Pan Am Flight 103 between London and New York in December 1988. It happened with an Air India flight in June 1985 between Montreal and London. During September 1989, a French airline Union des Transports Aériens was blown up over the Sahara. There is a possibility of this but; no debris field has been identified to support this.
Hijacking/commandeering
9/11-type hijacking gave the hijacking scenario a new definition. Apart from conventional hijack and demand of ransom scenario, hijacked place can be used for political motives or mass destruction.
As the days are passing by, this particular aspect is gathering momentum. There are strong suspicions about involvement of pilots/ insiders in hijacking case. The salient points in this regard are the following:
- The timing of transponder going off has happened just at the transition boundary of Malaysian and Vietnam. The aircraft simply didn’t contact Vietnam air traffic controller after bidding good bye to Malaysian Air traffic controller. This may be a clever ploy to delay the timing of detection of something unusual with the flight.
- After this, the missing Malaysian Jetliner did several skilled maneuvers. It went upto a height of 45000 feet which is substantially higher than the guideline. There is every possibility that unprepared crew and passengers got unconscious during this period.
- Subsequently, the plane came down and travelled at a height of 29500 feet. This height is very significant in the sense that Air traffic controllers allocate the height of travel in increment of 1000 feet. A plane flying without Air traffic controller support will be prone to accidents from flights flying in similar route. An increment of 500 feet is safe that way but dangerous nevertheless. All these maneuvers seemed to be coming from a very skilled and knowledgeable person
- The combination of altitude changes and two significant course corrections may have several explanations, including an intentional diversion by a pilot or a hijacker, or uneven flying because a disabled crew.
- Keeping the above in view, Captain Shah, a 53-year-old pilot of missing Malaysian Jetliner is fast becoming the main suspect. He has an advanced flight simulator in his home and was involved in lot of practice during his off period. Preliminary investigation suggests that he has a particular political affiliation. Unconfirmed reports indicate his behavioral changes during past one week.
- American officials suggested that three different pieces of signaling equipment had been disabled. One of those equipment (transponder) is located outside the cockpit. The implies that at least two people collaborated together if the signal failure and course change is man-created situation
Pilot suicide
We have observed two large jet crashes during 1990s — one flight belonged to Silk Air and other belonged to Egypt Air. Investigations in both the cases indicated deliberate pilot actions to crash the planes. Here, this can be a possibility but till date no crash site has been identified.
Accidental shoot-down
During July 1988, the United States Navy missile cruiser USS Vincennes accidently shot down an Iran Air flight carrying 290 passengers. In September 1983, Russian fighter jet shot down a Korean Air Lines flight. Therefore, this is always a possibility.
It is reported that Vietnam had just taken delivery of an advanced Russian Black Hole Submarine with Ground to Air missile capability. As we understand, these systems are under certification and testing. This brings in a remote possibility of accidental shooting down of the missing Malaysian Jetliner.
Deliberate take-down
There are rogue governments and terrorist organizations who don’t hesitate to take down an aircraft. Reasons for an intentional take-down include intimidating a particular entity to align or fall behind certain politics of a civil or governmental/semi-governmental entity. Here, the flight path or height of missing Malaysian Jetliner don’t indicate such possibility
Terrorism angle
It is reported that there were two fake passport holders in the list of passengers. This came into light soon after the plane disappeared. However, the investigators say it was unlikely the two men had links to terrorism. They more or less appeared to be illegal migrants trying to get to Europe. However, as indicated by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak , authorities were re-examining the list of crew and passengers to ascertain that terrorism is not the exact reason of missing Malaysian Jetliner’s disappearance.
Just recently, Strobe Talbott’s tweet has created a lot of stir. According to intelligence expert Strobe Talbott’s recent tweets that the “Malaysia plane mystery: Direction, fuel load & range now lead some to suspect hijackers planned a 9/11-type attack on an Indian city”. This implies that hijackers may have wanted to use the missing Malaysian flight to attack Indian cities.
Having pointed out and discussed all the possibilities and probabilities it is amply clear that we are far from concluding anything in this regard. We don’t keep high hope that even discovery of black box will solve the mystery as its data is continuously being overwritten with fresh set of data which may not be relevant in case of plane crashing so many days ago. May be the electronics used by the passengers, if recovered, will provide a vital clue. But, for the time being, let’s hope that all the passengers are safe in some unknown place waiting to be rescued.
We will update you once more information comes in the public domain regarding the missing Malaysian Jetliner. In case you have any theory or opinion in this regard please post it in the comments below.
Updates on 17th March,2014
Few new information have come into public domain:
- The aircraft is believed to be able to send the handshake signals to satellite even being in ground also. This signal comes into picture only when the engines are on. This brings in a new possibility of deliberately misleading the investigations
- Malaysian authorities seriously believe that the aircraft, in the last phase flew at a height of 5000 ft to avoid radar detection. The point is to be noted that these kind of aircraft are not designed to fly so low. This subjects the body of the aircraft to a massive stress due to atmospheric pressure and prolonged flying may result into structural disintegration. Missing Malaysian Jetliner, even with full tank, can fly only upto 800 miles in this altitude. Also, this will definitely make the passengers airsick.
- There seemed to be another qualified flight engineer among the passengers. he left Malaysian Airlines just recently and was going to join a new company in China. He is believed to be capable of controlling the flight.
- Lastly, but not the least, it is difficult to believe and digest that if the plane is landed somewhere, no passenger is able to communicate/ establish contact with any mobile towers!! This can only happen if the missing Malaysian Jetliner landed in some deep sea.
Author: Technology Blog
