[Peetwo]

MH370 SIO search update - 03/12/15

Following on from this...

This AM courtesy of PlaneTalking.. :

MH370: Live notes from special update

Ben Sandilands | Dec 03, 2015 10:14AM |



Malaysia Airlines 777-200ER 9M-MRO, which flew the ill fated MH370 service

An update on the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is being held at around 1030 eastern Australian daylight time in Canberra. The key points will be logged here, followed as necessary by a considered review of the new information.
The media alert makes no reference to the finding of MH370.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development Warren Truss and Assistant Minister for Defence Darren Chester will hold a press conference this morning on updated analysis of the search for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH 370.
 
Defence Science and Technology Group has provided further analysis to inform the Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s latest report: MH 370 – Definition of Underwater Search Area Update, which reaffirms the highest probability of the resting place of the aircraft in the current 120,000 sq km search zone.
 
The report will be released today.
 
Following the Ministers’ press conference [at 1230] the ATSB will conduct a separate technical briefing on the report for interested media.

MH370 with 239 people on board was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on 8 March 2014 when it disappeared as a transponder identified flight on air traffic control consoles while at 35,000 feet over the Gulf of Thailand.

Notes: Australia commissioned its own review of previous advice on the likely path taken by MH370 to ‘inform’ the new ATSB report on the definition of the underwater search area, and has released it today.

The deputy PM Warren Truss described the new report as ‘fairly heavy technical reading’.
He said the key points made by the new Defence Science and Technology Group confirmed the broad conclusions made by the strategic search panel that the jet turned south and flew to a point along the so-called seventh arc of possible locations of its point of impact with the water over the southern Indian Ocean.

At this point live television coverage in Australia switched back to the mass shooting tragedy in San Bernardino, and it would be fair to say, any aviation reporters living in SE Australia felt relieved that they hadn’t jumped in their cars in an attempt to reach Canberra in time to receive these new insights.

However, the new report hasn’t yet been studied in detail, and there is an ATSB press conference to come in less than two hours time.

Oh no BBB is back??

With beard 'a splendid' it would seem you can't keep our MH370 Super Sleuth Muppet out of the limelight indefinitely, here he is mi-mi-mi-ing around with the mi-mi-mi-miniscule...

   
Hmm...notice how the other dude - Assistant Minister for Defence Darren Chester - tries in vane to make himself scarce...   Can't say I blame him, I think I'd rather chew my arm off rather than be handcuffed to either of those two buffoons..

...to this, again from Ben Sandilands:

MH370: Data review doesn’t support a controlled ditching

Ben Sandilands | Dec 03, 2015 12:52PM |

A new best estimate of the most likely locations of MH370
A comprehensive review by the Australia managed search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 says data received from the Boeing 777 shortly before it crashed into the southern Indian Ocean is inconsistent with the jet having made a controlled ditching.

The review (in full here) has also narrowed the width of the primary search strips located along the so called seventh arc of possible impact points in the ocean, but also defined new search zones within the priority search areas.

It says that MH370 could have flown on a single engine for the last 15 minutes of powered flight before it fell to its impact point.

The Australian Defence Science and Technology (DST) Group said its analysis (which significantly replaces some earlier analysis on which the search was relying ) used models of the Inmarsat satellite communications (SATCOM) data and a model of aircraft dynamics as well as including met data.

One of the notable features of the new report is its ‘calibrating’ the satellite communications data from MH370 against the data from other 777 flights using the same satellite system including archived data from flights made by the same 777 that vanished on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on 8 March 2014.

(Some reports that use 7 March are set against universal time. However by the time MH370 ran out of fuel over the south Indian Ocean it was 8 March locally and in Greenwich.)

The DST and Boeing independently analysed achievable ranges, with time intervals, for different cruise altitudes for the 777, with results that were in general agreement.

Much of the DST review concerns an electrical event early in the flight that briefly cut off power to the Satellite Data Unit or SDU. It notes that the causes of this interruption could originated in controls located in an overhead panel in the cockpit, or in the [insecure] electronics and equipment bay which could be reached through a floor hatch immediately behind the cockpit, or through other equipment failures.

That event is discussed in relation to the final incomplete exchange of data between MH370 and the ground via an Inmarsat communications satellite seven hours and 38 minutes after takeoff, which is believed to have ended either because of impact, or an ‘unusual attitude’ in the falling jet prior to impact which would have interrupted the line of signal between the 777 and the satellite.

This final event also saw a sequence of events begin that are associated with power to the SDU being again cut off and then restored consistent with the right hand engine of the jet failing some 15 minutes before the remaining left hand engine ran out of fuel.

The evidence indicates that a combination of battery power and electricity generated by a ram air turbine, pre-programed to pop out of a hatch and into the slipstream in such an emergency, then took over prior to the jet inverting or hitting the sea.

For those who have closely followed the technical discussions about how MH370 came to its end, this is part of a graphical summary in the new ‘search area definition’ review.


If the sea states permit, the ocean floor search should be back in full swing in the priority area of most interest in the next few days, supported by a powerful automated underwater vehicle that could clear up any uncertainty that might arise from sonar side scanning images of possible debris from MH370.

 
MTF...P2