Tuesday, April 01, 2014

Most Likely MH 370 communications disabled deliberately


Of all the theories on the disappearance of MH370 the most plausible is the one given by the Bruce Rodger, president of Aero Consulting Experts who is also a pilot with a major commercial airline.
He takes us inside the cockpit and gives a very thorough explanation as to why Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 failed to respond or communicate, either to the communications towers or even to other airplanes. 

He thinks it is just next to impossible for a sophisticated plane such as a Boeing 777 to not to have any back up in case of a communication failure. 

"When Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared, I initially thought a sudden catastrophic event had taken place. The pilots didn’t have time to make a mayday call and something terrible happened that led to the Boeing 777 going down — fast.
Now, the information available points to an ominous series of events."
If someone wanted to make an airplane disappear it would have to be out of the range of air traffic control. Then they would disable the ACARS system and the transponder.
The airplane would be silenced — no one would know where it was.

That appears to be what happened here.
Here’s a breakdown of the key systems inside the cockpit that were disabled, though there are conflicting reports about the order in which they were turned off.
The Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System, called ACARS, allows the pilots and air traffic control to be in constant contact.
It’s like an online chat room for pilots to communicate with a destination airport, the airline, dispatch, the manufacturer and any other relevant parties. It’s very fast and efficient.
ACARS also communicates engine and aircraft health automatically. If something unusual happens — for example the engine is hotter than normal, or oil pressure is high — someone on the ground sees it and notifies the plane.
Here’s a key detail: ACARS does not have an on-off switch.
The only way to disable it is by pulling a circuit breaker in the cockpit. There are hundreds of circuit breakers in the cockpit of a 777 that correspond to every electrical device in the plane — from the coffee pot to the sockets on passenger seats. To find that particular circuit breaker one would have to be a 777 pilot or an expert trained in that particular model of aircraft.
The other device that was disabled on the flight — reportedly 14 minutes after ACARS was turned off — was the transponder.;
he transponder provides a wealth of data regarding exact aircraft positioning, airspeed and altitude to air traffic control. The system, which is very precise, is activated before taxiing or takeoff and remains on throughout the flight.

Only a Boeing 777 pilot or an expert trained in that particular model would know where to find a particular circut breaker in the cockpit.

If a pilot disables the transponder — which can easily be turned on and off — all the air traffic controller will see is a radar blip. That’s roughly the same amount of data a controller received tracking flights during World War II.
It’s notable that the last communication from the cockpit came as the pilots were passing from Malaysian airspace into Vietnamese airspace.
In this case the countries’ radar coverage likely didn’t overlap. So if the pilots failed to check in, turned off the transponder and pulled the circuit breaker to the ACARS, the airplane would be completely off the grid — taken off the air, so to speak.
Think man think. Why until today not one shred of hard evidence have emerged. It is all speculation. And We assume the plane went down in the Indian Ocean.



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