[Peetwo]

Hard to keep a dopey Muppet down - FDS

Binger in the Weekend Oz today:

Hopes of finding missing MH370 ‘are fading fast’

• Mitchell Bingemann
  
• The Australian
  
• May 14, 2016 12:00AM
  
  

Australian air crash investigators’ hopes that the missing Malaysian Airlines jet will be found are fading fast as time and space run out for locating the aircraft.

As the hunt for MH370 enters the final 13,000sq km of its designated 120,000sq km search area in the south Indian Ocean, the head of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, Martin Dolan, said there was a “diminishing level of confidence we will find the aircraft”. “We still think there is a good chance we will find the aircraft but that probability is falling so we have to start contemplating that we may not succeed,” he said. “Everyone … is still focused on the fact that the remaining 13,000sq km is still a lot of territory and it’s still entirely possible the aircraft is there. But we are also starting to think about the implications of not finding it.”

The ATSB is working on a ­report for the government should the search prove fruitless that will consider alternative possibilities for what happened to the plane, including the “rogue pilot” theory that posits the captain of MH370 hijacked his own aircraft and purposely crashed it into the sea.

“If we eliminate the entire 120,000sq km zone, we have eliminated the hypothesis … that there was no control inputs at the end of flight.” Mr Dolan said. “At this point an alternative hypothesis would need to be considered. Since we eliminate the hypothesis of no control inputs, then we look at the ways in which there was control, which would include a controlled ditching or a glide.”

He said there was no indication from the Australian, Mal­aysian or Chinese governments the search would be expanded.

Bloody buffoon couldn't lie straight in bed, it'll be poor bloody Greg Hood that'll have to oversee the audit report on what went wrong with the MH370 SIO search; and you can bet your bottom dollar it will be long after the dust of the election has well & truly settled...

Just like PelAir shameful obfuscation & non-actions typical of the inept machinations of a 'all care' no responsibility bureaucracy covering the government's ass...

Next Byron Bailey gets one last passing shot (maybe??) of the Beaker led ATSB (notice he has dropped the S in SIO ):

Debris confirms MH370 crash zone in Indian Ocean

• Byron Bailey
  
• The Australian
  
• May 14, 2016 12:00AM
  

Time is running out for the search vessels to locate MH370 before the search is terminated next month after enormous cost to the Australian taxpayer.
We know the plane is in the southern Indian Ocean. Generally, airline pilots and other genuine aviation experts believe captain Zaharie Shah hijacked his own Boeing 777 in a planned suicide mission.

Self-appointed armchair experts are often referred to as “aviation experts” by broadcasters, rather than the aviation consultants they actually are. Such people express opinions that may sound plausible to the non-pilot fraternity but are often rubbish.
This search appears to have been conducted in the wrong area, based on the Australian Transport Safety Bureau unresponsive pilot scenario. Yet we know from the National Geographic recent Air Crash Investigations documentary, which held Shah responsible, that only three minutes elapsed from when he said goodnight to Kuala Lumpur air traffic control to when he disappeared electronically and turned southwest.

If there was no pilot involvement the aircraft just would have flown itself to the programmed destination of Beijing. It was still under control 90 minutes later when it turned south just north of Sumatra.

If, as generally believed, Shah was trying to hide the aircraft in as remote a location as possible to hide his crime then he would endeavour to fly as far as possible before the fuel ran out. As an experienced Boeing 777 captain, this is how I would manage this. Fly at long-range cruise speed mach 0.83 at as high an altitude as possible for maximum range. As the first engine flamed out due to fuel starvation I would start a slow-speed descent at 220 knots indicated airspeed with the second engine at idle. Just before second engine flame-out, I would select flap while still having hydraulic pressure to ensure my sea impact speed would not be so severe as to cause massive amounts of debris. Passing 5000 feet and flying on limited flight control hydraulic pressure from the automatically deployed air driven generator I would turn into wind and try to judge a ditching at low speed so that the aircraft would not break up into pieces. This speed would be still in the order of 250km/h or greater.

I recently was well out to sea and observed how big the sea state can be, with very large waves in a 50km/h wind. In the latitudes south of 40 degrees the winds and sea state is even greater.

Some pieces of debris — confirmed as coming from MH370 — have been turning up. The first was a right flaperon that I suspect was due to the right engine being shorn off, as they are designed to do, in a heavy impact with the sea.

Later an associated piece turned up, also from the area immediately behind the right engine. And then a piece from the horizontal stabiliser (tailplane) leading edge, which also would support the shearing off of the right engine. The weakest part of the fuselage is at the juncture of the body and the wing. It appears to me that during the ditching the aircraft broke at this juncture and this is generally, depending on the seating configuration, where the partition between business class and economy occurs, so some panelling was dislodged.

All this does not answer the question of why the ATSB did not listen to experts who would have placed the search area at least 400km farther south and west. That is why MH370 has not been found.

Byron Bailey, a veteran commercial pilot with more than 45 years’ experience and 26,000 flying hours, is a former RAAF fighter pilot and trainer, and was a senior captain with Emirates for 15 years, during which he flew the same model Boeing 777 passenger jet as Malaysia Airlines MH370.

   
MTF...P2