Yes – that’s right – north and south movement. All geostationary sats move around a bit, but this one moves around quite a bit more, which is “useful” in this case.
However there is probably another factor: one has to assume this was a criminal act of some sort, and you don’t want to tell the whole world you can track airliners with a satellite
Well I would have thought you would to deter future similar acts. If someone’s relying on not being tracked, and they find it’s not so easy to avoid, they may turn their criminal enterprises to something other than killing an airliner full of people in a lonely part of the ocean.
Can anyone familiar with the 777 confirm:
Looks like Peter Ho….lmes is onto something..
I am not familiar with the 777 but know other big jets – so I try to answer as best as I remember (retired since 10 years) – error not excluded:
- toilet is normally outside the cockpit (toilets within the cockpit existed years ago by special customer request but were often rebuilt because of ventilation problems)
- circuit breakers for flight and voice recorder are in the lower avionics bay (Airbus) and are accessible during flight
- when both engines quit the autopilot will also disengage, and you would have to reengage it when the APU generator is available
- if the aircraft stays at FL350 the cabin emergency oxygen will not help to prevent unconsciouness of the user, because the low airpressure will not allow the oxygen / haemoglobin molecular bond to deliver O2 from the lungs into the body
- after entering a secret code on the outside the cockpit door will be unlocked after a time delay, but I think it can be relocked immediately from inside
- if you drive the main outflow valve open (2ftx2ft) you can depressurize the cabin in about 30-60s
This is just so incredibly weird. I’m not given to conspiracy theories, but something stinks here – big time. The way information has been handled from the beginning, the various ‘corridors’, repeated change in search areas, now shifted 700 miles NE. It’s also really strange how many – and which – posts are deleted in the huge thread running over at the wrinkled plum.
I doubt we’ll ever know the truth on this one.
I think that assuming this was a deliberate act yields the only straightforward explanation. Systems causes are all just too contrived, given how long it was airborne for afterwards.
My take is this:
The initial maneuvers (if confirmed) had to be done at least partly with human input – especially the climb to 45k (a figure which itself has not been confirmed and which is right at the very top of the 777 performance envelope, especially with that fuel load) but the last 6-7hrs over the open ocean could have been flown just on the autopilot in HDG mode and with everybody dead. If they find the FDR and it’s not full of water they will get all the answers to that bit. I am amazed the pilot(s) can pull the CBs on the recorders – that just goes totally against the whole principle.
I think the simplest explanation is that one of the pilots waited till the other went to the loo (if the loo is outside the cockpit) and then locked him out, or killed him (if the loo is internal) and the best opportunity for that would have been after the last radio call which, being a handover to the next unit, gave the maximum time before anybody on the ground would notice the lost comms. That is a good time for me to have a leak, because even in the ultra tight N. Europe nobody is going to miss me for a minute or two.
Then he put his oxygen mask on (good for 1-2hrs even at 45k), depressurised the aircraft to kill everybody (and a climb to 45k would have done that much faster than flying on at 30k-35k, because of the cabin crew portable oxygen kits in the cabin which might have given somebody time to use the fire axe on the door to get back in) and then, after say 1hr at 30-35k (enough time to use up any cabin crew oxygen in the cabin) he could leisurely repressurise and fly on… or just set the heading and take off his mask and die…
Or some other scenario involving human activity.
I recall reading that when the Cypriot 737 depressurised, the F16 crews saw somebody with one of the crew oxygen kits in the cockpit. He was unsuccessful but he was alive and doing stuff, for maybe an hour or two at ~FL300. So maybe those cabin crew kits are not completely useless – at 30k. At 45k they would be completely useless, due to nowhere near enough o2 partial pressure.
What I do find amazing is that for all the military satellites up there, nothing was seen in the visible spectrum, nothing in the IR spectrum, nothing electronic was picked up… I guess that if something was picked up, and pointed to a crash into the sea, the operator would not blow the military capability to help the search for a load of people who are dead anyway. Cynical? Sure. Read some Cold War history…
The mods on proon are incredibly busy deleting all but the most banal postings. Very weird. I doubt it is an officially demanded action, because the only posts which they would be required to delete would be very specific ones, national security related or indicating the poster signed the OSA and is spilling something (this happened previously on that site and they had to disclose his identity). I suspect they are just enjoying the (currently) 13,252,687 thread clicks and the resulting advert activity.
Peter,
45K is outside of the performance envelope of the 777. At their weight, one 777 captain said there would only be a 10 Kt difference between supersonic and stall, coffin corner. If the 45000 feet is accurate, it had to be based on military radar since the transponder was turned off. Dumping the cabin at 35000 would certainly do the trick on the PAX and there would be no need to climb. My guess is that if there was a climb (big if), it was the result of a fight in the cockpit for control or a mechanical failure as it makes no sense for a pilot to climb to this altitude intentionally.
If a C172 could penetrate Soviet airspace and land in Red Square before the end of the cold war, I don’t put that much confidence in military radar systems, particularly at night, with unmotivated observers and third world or emerging countries. I suspect that military satellites are tasked and are looking for specific things and in the scheme of things a 777 is not that large of a target for a satellite, at night, over the ocean, in international waters. Even the US military could not respond and locate the 9/11 757 and 767 aircraft and they were a known and ongoing threat at the time, also with their transponders turned off and over land.
Or we can stick to a more ordinary scenario: electrical fire and crew incapacitation.
Peter, why would someone (one of the pilots ?) be interested in deactivating the recorders ?
