Engine Data Suggests Missing Airplane Flew On for Hours After Radar Disappearance [View all]

[Cali_Democrat]

This is interesting. Apparently the engines send bursts of data to the ground as part of a routine maintenance and monitoring program. The data suggests the plane could have flown on for hours after it disappeared from radar.

Missing Airplane Flew On for Hours
By Andy Pasztor
Updated March 13, 2014 12:50 a.m. ET

U.S. investigators suspect that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 stayed in the air for about four hours past the time it reached its last confirmed location, according to two people familiar with the details, raising the possibility that the plane could have flown on for hundreds of additional miles under conditions that remain murky.

Aviation investigators and national security officials believe the plane flew for a total of five hours based on data automatically downloaded and sent to the ground from the Boeing Co. 777's engines as part of a routine maintenance and monitoring program.


U.S. counterterrorism officials are pursuing the possibility that a pilot or someone else on board the plane may have diverted it toward an undisclosed location after intentionally turning off the jetliner's transponders to avoid radar detection, according to one person tracking the probe.

http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702304914904579434653903086282-lMyQjAxMTA0MDEwMzExNDMyWj