Fricking crashing airplanes

[rumborak]

I don't know. I still subscribe to the "something went badly wrong and they tried to get to the nearest airport" theory, but at some point the crew was so incapacitated that the plane just flew on.

[El Barto]

Can't conjure up a scenario that would take into account for pilot incapacitation, loss of transponder and continued flight of the AC for 4 hours. Add to that there were either course corrections long after the event, or they flew right the hell back over Kuala Lumpur.

[rumborak]

Yeah, never mind. Newest thing is that the plane actively evaded Indonesian radar.
Huh. Maybe a hijack to go to Australia.

[rumborak]

I only now learned that those pingers are actually *audio* pingers. Kinda surprising to hear they don't also have an RF one.

[El Barto]

Every military on Earth is equipped to hear audio pings in the oceans. Most can get a very accurate idea of what and where it is. Helicopters can dip sonar into the water and all aircraft can drop sonobuoys all over the place. Acoustic pingers are quite effective here. Also, I believe that RF transmission underwater is sketchy, at best. Pretty sure they're largely limited to the VLF chunk of the spectrum and I'm not sure how useful that would be in locating something potentially far away.

[rumborak]

One thing I don't understand is, they seemingly narrowed down the search area to a manageable size. Even with ocean currents being what they are, shouldn't they have some floating debris?

[El Barto]

One thing I don't understand is, they seemingly narrowed down the search area to a manageable size. Even with ocean currents being what they are, shouldn't they have some floating debris?

Yeah, they should have. Honestly, their entire approach to this search seems pretty dubious to me. I suppose you have to search where you have leads, but other than the pings they haven't really had any decent ones. I'm not even sure if they've confirmed that the pings are even emergency locator beacons from the AC.

[rumborak]

Wtf, a month in they find out something new about the flight path when it was still in Vietnamese air space.
The more I read about this investigation, the more I get the impression it's a combination of withholding information, and sheer incompetence.

[MetalMike06]

On Apr 23rd 2014 the JACC reported that "Western Australia Police have attended a report of material washed ashore 10 kilometres east of Augusta and have secured the material." The ATSB is examining the material if there is any relevance to flight MH-370, photos have been taken and sent to Malaysia.

On Apr 23rd 2014 the ATSB described the material as a sheet of metal with rivets, the material appears interesting enough to take a closer look. Malaysia's Transportation Minister commented he had not yet seen those photographs.

https://avherald.com/h?article=4710c69b&opt=0

Probably nothing. Debris already found so far out there turned out to be unrelated. But we'll see.

The above site is great, btw, to follow aviation incidents and studf.

[bl5150]

Breaking News - another MH flight is down in Ukraine - early reports are all on board perished and it MAY have been shot down.

[Chino]

"Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine's Interior Minister, wrote on Facebook that the plane was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher over the country's east, the Associated Press reports.

Malaysia Airlines confirmed it had lost contact with flight MH17 and that its last position was over Ukrainian airspace.

A Russian aviation industry source told Reuters that the plane did not enter Russian airspace when expected."

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/17/malaysia-airlines-plane-cras_n_5595516.html#24_report-photo-taken-by-passenger-shows-plane-that-crashed

[kári]

Woah, that is pretty crazy.

[Ben_Jamin]

It's pretty odd, it came from a European country. And why was it flying directly over a warzone? Some things aren't adding up right.

[kári]

Yes, very strange. It left from Amsterdam and were 20 dutch people on board apparently.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Yea just heard, just insane.

[El Barto]

That's a damn shame. These things do happen, though. We've done it, as have the Rooskies.

The FAA has issued a NOTAM restricting a good deal of airspace over the region, and while this wouldn't apply to foreign carriers, I have a hard time believing that other regulatory organizations wouldn't have, as well. Both sides have been conducting anti-aircraft ops out the ass. The only thing I can think of is that a lot of the region isn't effected. It's possible they were in a "safe zone" that turned out to be not so safe.

[Orbert]

NOTAM?

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

Notice to Airmen

[Orbert]

Ah, got it.

[El Barto]

It occurs to me that the likelihood of this falling into the "these things happen" category is probably about the same as it being a deliberate act from either side in the conflict. Seems that this thing would have fantastic false-flag potential.

[El Barto]

Turns out all of the Eurasian airlines are scrambling now to reroute their airliners. NOW! It appears that common sense is something that occasionally requires a government mandate. Honestly, if MA really did fly right the hell over an active combat zone, I blame them far more than I do whoever shot it down.

BTW, the FAA's NOTAM was published mid-April.



edit: Man, talk about a shitstorm:

[ErHaO]

Goddamn, I know one of the guys that was on the plane that was shot down. He was one of my neighbours (student house) and a good friend of one of my roommates. We even went to their party last week (I did not really know him personally myself, though).

Also, some AIDS researchers, including professor Joep Lange, were on their way to a AIDS congres. Apparently a lot of medical experts/researchers died on this plane as well.

And I heard something about 80 kids as well.

Shit man, this is fucked up.

But to be honest, I do not think you can really blame the airlines. They fly at 10 km height, which normal rockets and equipment are not able to reach and neither party is likely to take delibirate aim at civillian planes, due to the international pressure that follows. (It was already forbidden to fly under the  7.900 metres height in the area, but the risks were considered very minimal above that and neither the Ukranians nor Russians issued a statement that they will shoot down airplanes). Planes fly over conflict zones all the time, around the globe. This particular area as well, other planes have been at that place at the same day.

The idiots that shot the missiles are really the ones to blame, as there are methods to identify massive civillian planes and they fly by frequently. But this happens if you give idiot rebels good military grade equipment capable of this stuff. Still, I agree that airlines should avoid warzones to nullify the risks alltogether, as almost 300 innocent people died now.

[Chino]

But to be honest, I do not think you can really blame the airlines They fly at 10 km height, which normal rockets and equipment are not able to reach and neither party is likely to take delibirate aim at civillian planes, due to the international pressure that follows. .

I've read that the Eurasian airlines were warned not fly over certain areas of the Ukraine specifically for this reason. If that's true, I can 100% blame the airline.

[El Barto]

Well, most of your Eurasian planes were scrambling pretty hard to rework their flightpaths yesterday. While I think there had been an advisement it was still pretty crowded over Ukraine until after the event (it's a ghost town now).

@ErHaO, an Airbus cargo plane was shot down at FL220 a few days ago. At that point all bets are off. Somebody demonstrated mid-range anti-air capability and a willingness to use it on non-combatants. After that (and it honestly shouldn't have taken that) I'm amazed that airlines continued to use those corridors. Personally, I'm putting most of the blame on the airline (the direct route was to save fuel costs). It was a judgement call and they chose wrong, leading to:

Something that'll be lost is the fact that for ages now Malaysian Airlines has been one of the top ranked airlines in the world. The 2014 list had them ranked 5th, and that was after the disappearance of the other AC. Yet in 5 or so more days they'll be insolvent. They can't survive this despite their stellar history.

[ErHaO]

But to be honest, I do not think you can really blame the airlines They fly at 10 km height, which normal rockets and equipment are not able to reach and neither party is likely to take delibirate aim at civillian planes, due to the international pressure that follows. .

I've read that the Eurasian airlines were warned not fly over certain areas of the Ukraine specifically for this reason. If that's true, I can 100% blame the airline.

You are right that there was negative advice regarding the area, I did not read that before. And as I said, since a few days it is forbidden to fly under the 7.900 m. That the airlines underestimated the risk is an understatement, otherwise this would not happen.

But still, you cannot put all the blame on the airlines (now knowing there was a clear risk, I definately agree there is blame, though). Shooting a civillian plane at 10 km is what happens if someone decides to give a amateuristic rebel army such equipment. There are ways to determine the identity of such aircrafts. I do wonder though, why was this plane in particular shot? One would think the rebels know by now that it is an air route, so the size of the plane and height should at least ring a bell. There has to be something that triggered them into shooting other than just seeing a plane.

But shit man, today is a sad day. So many children going in holiday, damn...

[ariich]

Well, if the recordings that the Ukranian authorities put online are genuine (a big if), the people who shot it down weren't expecting any civilian flights over a warzone and seemed confused and panicked by what happened.

[kári]

Yes, I don't think they knew it was civilian airplane when they decided to shoot it down.

[El Barto]

Well, if the recordings that the Ukranian authorities put online are genuine (a big if), the people who shot it down weren't expecting any civilian flights over a warzone and seemed confused and panicked by what happened.

That wouldn't surprise me. If it was the rebels I suspect they were shooting at it as a cargo plane. Turns out they've shot two down now (there was another last month carrying troops). Also, the fact that there had been three planes shot down in the last 30 days should have been a pretty big red flag to any carrier in the world to steer clear of the region.

And does anybody even remember that we did damn near the exact same thing 25 years ago? I'm not trying to make any sort of political implication or justification here, but it seems important for people to recognize that the best military in the world, sporting what is probably still (and definitely was) the finest radar and control system in the world, mistook an Airbus for an F-14 and shot it down. I think a lot of people are greatly overestimating the difficulty in something like this happening.

[erik16]

The (pro-)Russian separatists-terrorists have been downing aircraft almost as a hobby recently. Before this incident they had downed a couple of cargo planes and Ukrainian ground attack jets (note here that according to Kyiv government the latest downed jet - Su-25 was actually shot on from the territory of Russian Federation). There's also been GRAD shelling from across the Russian border, as well as wishy false-flags by the separatists to provoke Putin to interfere overtly.

This time unfortunately they went too far. This is now out of Putin's control. The separatists downed the Malaysian airplane thinking it was a Ukrainian cargo plane. They boasted with it on social media, including their Muscovite FSB commander - Igor Girkin. When they realised what they'd actually blown up, they started covering it all up...

[rumborak]

Amazing. 6 months of intense searching, and they found jack shit. Not even a shred of debris.
I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes a thing where they only find the plane in 50 years as part of a "Seafloor Project" where they map the whole seafloor of the earth.

[El Barto]

Amazing. 6 months of intense searching, and they found jack shit. Not even a shred of debris.
I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes a thing where they only find the plane in 50 years as part of a "Seafloor Project" where they map the whole seafloor of the earth.

I still think in a year or two lots of debris is going to wash up all over Blob's yard.

[Chino]

Speaking of planes going down, apparently a single engine plane just crashed about a mile and a half from my house.

[rumborak]

Not the one that they escorted the other day with jet fighters until it crashed, right? There was one that must have been on auto-pilot, but they couldn't make contact with it.

[Chino]

No, that one landed somewhere near Cuba if I'm not mistaken. I'm talking about a plane that literally just went down... like three hours ago.

[El Barto]

No, that one landed somewhere near Cuba if I'm not mistaken. I'm talking about a plane that literally just went down... like three hours ago.

That one Payne Stewarted it's way to the Caribbean and crashed somewhere off the coast of Jamaica, I believe.