Thread: Flight 370

Who knows, with China breathing down their necks for answers, maybe their are just throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks. Throwing darts? It's a puzzle for sure.

Bob

Originally Posted by BobH

Who knows, with China breathing down their necks for answers, maybe their are just throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks. Throwing darts? It's a puzzle for sure.

Bob

I was wondering when China was going to get a little angry, considering it is mostly Chinese Citizens onboard,

March hasn't been a good month for them
Comment: China debates blame for train station killings | SBS News

Originally Posted by gssixgun

I was wondering when China was going to get a little angry, considering it is mostly Chinese Citizens onboard,

March hasn't been a good month for them
Comment: China debates blame for train station killings | SBS News

There was another stabbing incident there recently as well .

Yeah I read that too David but that one probably was an argument between Vendors at a market and not related to terrorism, at least that was the latest I read..

Slightly off topic, but isn't it annoying that these days, everything is called terrorism, as if 'normal' crime is no longer existing. First start a war on 'terror', and then call everyone a terrorist. And if anyone speaks, you can kill the argument by saying 'why do you care? Do you have sympathy for the guy(s) who did X?' This is the ultimate dream for any government wanting to be able to treat 'undesirables' any way they please.

A guy hijacking a plane is a hijacker.

I'm curious though. If it is a hijack, at some point the people would have noticed and why then is there no telephone traffic from the passengers, or a distress signal from the pilots. I can't imagine that post 9/11 there would be no procedures for secretly sending out a distress signal. In fact, if I was an aircraft engineer who had to anticipate hijack scenarios, I would design it so that simply turning off the transponder at altitude would automatically trigger an emergency distress signalling.

Originally Posted by Bruno

I'm curious though. If it is a hijack, at some point the people would have noticed and why then is there no telephone traffic from the passengers, or a distress signal from the pilots. I can't imagine that post 9/11 there would be no procedures for secretly sending out a distress signal. In fact, if I was an aircraft engineer who had to anticipate hijack scenarios, I would design it so that simply turning off the transponder at altitude would automatically trigger an emergency distress signalling.

1. There is no cell phone service at sea. Remember they were quite a way out before the plane deviated from its flight plan and they really don't know (or won't say) what direction it went from there.

2. There are times that ATC (air traffic control) may legitimately ask a pilot to turn off his transponder. In those cases, they REALLY don't want to see anything reported about your flight. Your suggestion would trigger all kinds of unwelcome alarms in ATC facilities at exactly the time they wouldn't want that.

3. There are transponder codes (squawks) to communicate unusual situations to ATC with your transponder: 7500 hijacked, 7600 comms out, 7700 emergency.

Originally Posted by Splashone

2. There are times that ATC (air traffic control) may legitimately ask a pilot to turn off his transponder. In those cases, they REALLY don't want to see anything reported about your flight. Your suggestion would trigger all kinds of unwelcome alarms in ATC facilities at exactly the time they wouldn't want that.

Interesting, what would be such a scenario? I'd assume that since the transponder is more or less saying 'I'm right here', turning it off would generally be a bad idea above a certain altitude.

Most of the time it will happen when your transponder is putting out erroneous data. Sometimes you need to "reboot" it, they may just ask you to turn off the altitude reporting, or in rare cases turn it off. If you are putting out erroneous data, you can trigger proximity alarms in other aircraft and ATC that they might not want to continually listen to if they are in error!

The real issue is why wasn't the plane tracked after the transponder was off?

The transponder is only an aid for ATC. It is interrogated by the radar and then replies with the assigned code and flight level (altitude in feet/100) for the aircraft. The radar still receives the "skin paint" when the transponder is off. ATC can still manually assign track data to that "raw" return and the computers are pretty good at keeping the data correlated. They don't like to do it because of the added work load, but the airplane did not "magically disappear" when the transponder was shut down. Granted they have to ask what the aircraft altitude is but (civilian radar rarely includes a height finder radar). The aircraft could have then descended below the radar horizon but then they would have burned WAY more fuel at lower altitudes. The military routinely deals with non-squawking aircraft...believe me a penetrating enemy aircraft is NOT going to be squawking or talking!

Originally Posted by Bruno

Slightly off topic, but isn't it annoying that these days, everything is called terrorism, as if 'normal' crime is no longer existing. First start a war on 'terror', and then call everyone a terrorist. And if anyone speaks, you can kill the argument by saying 'why do you care? Do you have sympathy for the guy(s) who did X?' This is the ultimate dream for any government wanting to be able to treat 'undesirables' any way they please.

A guy hijacking a plane is a hijacker.

I'm curious though. If it is a hijack, at some point the people would have noticed and why then is there no telephone traffic from the passengers, or a distress signal from the pilots. I can't imagine that post 9/11 there would be no procedures for secretly sending out a distress signal. In fact, if I was an aircraft engineer who had to anticipate hijack scenarios, I would design it so that simply turning off the transponder at altitude would automatically trigger an emergency distress signalling.

Case and point: BBC News - Berkin Elvan: Turkish PM accuses dead boy of terror links



Fear mongering is fantastic until it isn't. It'll bite us all in the... in the long-run me thinks. But on a positive note. Look at all the resources that will be thrown at looking for this plane because of the war on terror if they claim its terrorism!