Exclusive: Malaysia plane probe narrows on mid-air disintegration -source

[alp227]

Source: Reuters

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) -Officials investigating the disappearance of a Malaysian airliner with 239 people on board are narrowing the focus of their inquiries on the possibility that it disintegrated mid-flight, a senior source said on Sunday.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished after climbing to a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing in the early hours of Saturday. Search teams have not been able to make any confirmed discovery of wreckage in seas beneath the plane's flight path almost 48 hours after it took off.

"The fact that we are unable to find any debris so far appears to indicate that the aircraft is likely to have disintegrated at around 35,000 feet," said the source, who is involved in the preliminary investigations in Malaysia.

If the plane had plunged intact from such a height, breaking up only on impact with the water, search teams would have expected to find a fairly concentrated pattern of debris, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the investigation.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/09/us-exclusive-probe-plane-idUSBREA280FF20140309

[LiberalEsto]

1. For the victims' sakes, I pray that it happened instantaneously

so they didn't have to experience pain or terror.

And I wish healing for their bereaved families.

[Hestia]

2. This story is sounding more and more like a Bermuda Triangle type of incident - too weird,

especially after another plane was in contact with this one that "disappeared" and now no debris? Very very strange...

[LongTomH]

6. More likely a terrorist bomb!

And, they may never find the perpetrators!

[lostincalifornia]

27. Yes, but they will find them through the stolen passports, and photos they have of them

[Uben]

3. I don't understand this....

Usually when a plane goes down, there is a homing beacon that can be located, yet I have heard nothing about the beacon. Wonder why?

[ladywnch]

7. there was something posted yesterday about the limitations of the beacons

I don't remember all of it but things that affect them:

distance - they' re not sure exactly where they're looking yet.....thousands of square miles of ocean

water - if the boxes are in the water it will inhibit the signal

time - the signal weakens over time (although they don't say how much time that takes)

That's as best I can remember

[freshwest]

8. That's what's had me puzzled. And the black box can take almost anything. Should be able to find it.

And disintegrated? How?

[Uben]

10. I read somewhere that one of the passenger's cell phone rings

If it rings, it's not in the water. Intriguing!

[freshwest]

18. Well, they short out if they get wet. Being unable to get through would mean the passenger is sadly,

under the water. And signals aren't that great over a distance, anyway. Not enough power to pick up the GPS track just one cellphone from the satellite. People flying at 35,000 feet is common but not natural by any definition. Unsure what the extreme cold, lack of pressure, windforce or other factors do to electronics. This is starting to sound more tragic as time goes on. OTOH, if they ever got a response from one of the passenger's phones, we'd have reason to feel some hope fof them.

[brooklynite]

13. The transposer signal has distance limits...

...affected by whether it's underwater (and how deep) and how far it is from the searcher. There seems to be a measure of confusion as to which part of the are needs to be searched.

[freshwest]

19. Well, there was this that I'd hoped would narrow the area:

Mr. Robertsson said a turn made by the aircraft just before it vanished from radar screens was consistent with its flight path.

Aircraft and boats from China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam searched the area where Malaysian ground controllers lost contact with the plane: the maritime border between Malaysia and Vietnam.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/10/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-flight.html?action=click&contentCollection=Dining%20%26%20Wine&region=Footer&module=TopNews&pgtype=article

to MADem

A reply from your thread:

MISSING MH370: Fake passport bearers bought tickets together

They're doing all the right things to figure out where the plane may be...

[brooklynite]

33. That made it worse...

Did it go left or right? Sharp turn or gradual?

[freshwest]

34. I've seen video at air shows where planes can do amazing things. Like this one in Afghanistan:

Crash of 747 caught on dashcam in Afghanistan (video)

WARNING: Plane crashes after take off, bursts into flames:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014470589

What the plane did looks impossible. It was suggested the load shifted. If the plane we are talking about here lost control, it could have done anything.

[pangaia]

26. Transposer? What's that? :>)

Every aircraft has a transponder tuned to a specific radio frequency..known as a squawk code..even the lowly Cessna 150..
This is how ATC knows which aircraft they see on radar screens. If the aircraft blew up-- no transponder signal.

Many aircraft, including all commercial aircraft, also have an ELT - Emergency Locator Transmitter. When manually activated, or when it activates automatically in a crash, whether on land or in water, it sends out a satellite signal.

Commercial aircraft also have, or SHOULD have, an EPIRB -Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon -intended for use under water. I don't know from how deep their signal can be pick up by satellite.

From what I have read elsewhere, the waters where it is suspected the plane may have gone down are very shallow- just several hundred feet. If the ELT or EPIRB were still functioning, it would be possible to pick up its signal at this depth.

Other than that, I don't know squat about what happened..

[Jeneral2885]

11. really

I don't think so. If not all past crashes and disappearances should be easily found.

[Uben]

17. Just heard on tv....

Malaysia doesn't require it's planes to have transponders. That would do it!

[pangaia]

28. EVERY commercial plane in the world has a transponder.

Somebody is getting their terms wrong. Even a Cessna 150 has a transponder.

Ah! You heard it on TV.

Now, Uben, how many times have I told you.. No TV!!

[CherokeeDem]

15. I heard on CNN....

if the black boxes were underwater they needed a ship with special equipment to detect them. I suppose it would depend on how deep the boxes were.

So very sad for the families.

[ewagner]

24. Black boxes and ELTs...

The black boxes, I think, refer to the Flight Data Recorder and the Cockpit Voice Recorder...I'm not sure if they have a homing device included in their designs..

The ELT is the EMERGENCY LOCATOR TRANSMITTER. It transmits on 121.5 on impact or loss of power...The can be tracked by satellite....I don't know if they work underwater.

This is the extent of my knowledge on those devices.

[pangaia]

30. Yes, they work under water.

The EPIRBs -Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons- is intended for underwater searching. Not sure from how deep its signal can be received.

[B2G]

4. Wouldn't that leave a very large debris field?

A plane doesn't actually 'disintegrate', but breaks up into smaller pieces.

The fact that they have found nothing so far seems to indicate to me that the plane entered the water intact and hadn't broken up.

[go west young man]

5. Ripping apart at 35,000 feet at 500mph

means very small pieces scattered over a huge area. If they find anything it will likely be small fragments so they won't have much to go on. Most of it has probably sunk or dispersed.

[Sunlei]

21. The Challenger 'disintegrated' & some pieces recovered were large.

Their crew cabin hit the water at about 200mph from 'freefall'.

[Bosonic]

31. Demonstrably incorrect

Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie unfortunately provides empirical evidence that large sections can survive a 'disintegration' at >30,000ft and 500mph.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103

[jtuck004]

22. That's what it sounds like. They were at 35,000 feet, so if a fire started, or a piece of the

outer skin ripped away, most of the plane would be intact while everyone inside was dying, either from lack of oxygen or perhaps the fumes from what was burning, incapacitating the crew and passengers fairly quickly. If it disintegrated in the air there would be lots of stuff that floats laying all over the place. If a fire or something happened inside everything could still be inside, with a little escaping as it probably broke on hitting the water, but taking most everything down with it.

[SoapBox]

9. Ugh...another incident to add to incidents that stick in my brain to this day.

Swiss Air and Air France (Concorde and Airbuss).

RIP All.

[ColesCountyDem]

12. The Vietnamese think they've found some wreckage in the vicinity of the oil slicks.

http://news.yahoo.com/vietnam-says-may-found-missing-jets-door-161951222.html

[SoapBox]

14. Like a cabin door floating...

[Agschmid]

36. NPR says the debris was not a match to the plane.

[Gin]

16. What if it was successfully hijacked.??? If the cell phone story is true its location

Could help the investigation. IMHO

[Sunlei]

20. expected a couple seconds contact from the crew if it went down even partly intact.

[Gumboot]

23. That's my thinking, too.

No distress call from the pilots means something happened very suddenly - there was no time for them to react.

A bomb on board? Structural failure? Mid-air collision? Perhaps even a missile?

As for the rumours that the plane had 'turned around', maybe that was a large piece of wreckage spiralling downward out of control.

I find it very strange that no floating debris has been found, though. It is usually scattered over a wide area.

The B-777 family of airliners has had an exceptional safety record thus far.

[SoapBox]

25. The lack of mass debris is odd...

There are all kinds of bits and pieces that would float.

[840high]

29. That has me puzzled, too. Something

should be floating if it hit water.

[brooklynite]

37. Not necessarily...

...if the pilots are busy trying to recover control after an incident, they may not let themselves get distracted by making a radio announcement.

[freshwest]

32. So as it entered the 35,000 range the plane lost structural integrity?

Would that be a blow out due to less atmospheric pressure?

I'm not sure what they are telling us here, by the term disintegration. If it happened at that altitude, as least the people didn't suffer, I guess.

RIP. Sympathy for their famiies.

[brett_jv]

35. Hope everyone's safe on The Island and Hugo just failed to enter 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 ...

into the computer on time.

Not to make light of this, but I'm really hoping that somehow everyone is okay, and just hanging out on some island somewhere, waiting for us to find them.

I can't ever remember it taking so long for a missing plane to be found as it has in this particular case. Pretty strange, really.

If those poor folks didn't make it, I really hope that they didn't suffer.