Posted on 03/13/2014 5:02:50 PM PDT by mandaladon
Two U.S. officials tell ABC News the U.S. believes that the shutdown of two communication systems happened separately on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
One source said this indicates the plane did not come out of the sky because of a catastrophic failure.
The data reporting system, they believe, was shut down at 1:07 a.m. The transponder -- which transmits location and altitude -- shut down at 1:21 a.m.
This indicates it may well have been a deliberate act, ABC News aviation consultant John Nance said.
U.S. investigators told ABC News that the two modes of communication were "systematically shut down." That means the U.S. team "is convinced that there was manual intervention," a source said, which means it was likely not an accident or catastrophic malfunction that took the plane out of the sky.
U.S. officials said earlier that they have an "indication" the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner may have crashed in the Indian Ocean and is moving the USS Kidd to the area to begin searching.
It's not clear what the indication was, but senior administration officials told ABC News the missing Malaysian flight continued to "ping" a satellite on an hourly basis after it lost contact with radar. The Boeing 777 jetliners are equipped with what is called the Airplane Health Management system in which they ping a satellite every hour. The number of pings would indicate how long the plane stayed aloft.
It's not clear, however, whether the satellite pings also indicate the plane's location.
The new information has greatly expanded the potential search area into the Indian Ocean.
(Excerpt) Read more at gma.yahoo.com ...
Goo gled “airfields in the Andaman and Nicobar islands” & found this article:
Also from the search, Car Nicobar is in that area.
I fly commercial all the time. Once I took a military plane from ABQ to Holloman with a military pilot, and passenger comfort was not a concern. We jerked and jumped off the runway and began a tight turn almost immediately. It wa G force that Southwest would never have treated me to.
I think previous post was for Capt. Tom
Sure, there are 3 primary transponder modes, but I didn’t want to get too detailed about it. I just wanted to make the point that turning off a transponder doesn’t mean the aircraft disappears because the radar tracking still works.
ADS-B is also just beginning to come online. It is a newer technology that most aircraft don’t have the equipment installed to participate.
The US is now mostly CDMA with AT&T and T-Mobile on GSM.
Thanks for the updated info.
I have heard airline pilots say that they are careful not to alarm passengers with steep turns or otherwise uncomfortable manoeuvres in VFR conditions but that when on solid instruments they will fly more aggressively.
But the point still is that runway lengths and operations during take off and landing phase are done by the book.
Yesterday’s incident in Philadelphia would have been a big disaster with many deaths had the aircraft not been on a runway that met the accelerate stop requirements of that aircraft.
The military has entirely different missions and therefore have their own standards.
I forgot to add that under IFR conditions, say with heavy weather close by, you would never have know the G forces were caused by a tight turn. You would have most likely thought it was a strong updraft.
Maybe we(U.S.A.) already know where the plane is. The question is do we tell how we know. The U.S.A. has had convert listening and seismic listening for years. What advancements do we want to leak?
We may just move naval forces where others suggest something is happening to not “show our cards”.
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/sound01/background/seasounds/seasounds.html
If their target were within fuel range, which India probably is, the attack would have taken place already.
If this is truly a planned event, it is more complicated than crashing an airplane into a building...unless that building is far far away and requires refueling and other preparations.
So who was on board?
Maybe nuclear scientists?
Government couriers carrying secret documents?
Engineers working on secret weapons?
If it is a highjacking, these are questions that need to be examined.
Or the crew went absolutely mad and there is no explanation...but that would have ended in a fireball long ago.
Nor would I.
But the next question:
What the hell is a global summit?
Sounds like something insanely liberal that no kid of mine would go near.
Most likely this is al Qaeda or an al Qaeda-allied terrorist cell.
The other aircraft plots like 9/11, the shoe bomber, the underwear bomber, were al Qaeda-planned missions.
The cell members might be any nationality, Iranian or Egyptian or Malaysian or what have you, and they perform whatever mission they are given by the leadership. And the al Qaeda leadership is closely tied to elements in Pakistan, as even bin Laden himself was living in a compound in a Pakistani military city.
I suspect there is a cat and mouse game going on between the U.S. and China to try to not disclose how well their spying technologies actually work.
Richard Quest CNN said no airstrip in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands could handle a 777. /FWIW
Port Blair Airport ! Hill-Top view !! -Andaman & Nicobar Island
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3l2tEtRCaM
Who controls this piece of real estate?
” USS Kidd”
The older Kidd was originally destined for Iran when built but the Shah was deposed.
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