Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370: Missing For Two Weeks

I gave the Lemming some time off. He should be back in time for next week's post, provided he doesn't go wandering off to haunts of coot and hern, or wherever he's been going lately.

This week, I've got a very serious topic: Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, which disappeared from radar between Kuala Lumpur and the Andaman Sea.

That was two weeks ago.

Here's what we know:

• Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared on shortly after takeoff.
• The 239 folks on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 are still missing.
• The flight left Kuala Lumpur at 16:41 GMT, March 7; and was expected in Beijing at 22:30 GMT.
• No trace of the airliner, or the people on board, has been confirmed.
• Folks on MH370 included artists, children, and at least one engineer.
• Their homes were in China, Malaysia, and other countries.
• Their family, friends, and associates are understandably concerned.

Yesterday I read that satellites spotted two objects in the Indian Ocean, between Australia and Antarctica. More about that:

• "Search resumes for possible debris from missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370"
  Chelsea J. Carter, Kyung Lah and Mike Pearson, CNN (March 20, 2014)

One of the objects is vaguely rectangular and roughly 24 meters long. It might be part of the Malisian Airlines Boeing 777-200ER.

Or it might be a nearly-submerged cargo container lost from some freighter; debris washed downriver and into the ocean from a construction project; or something else unrelated to the airliner.

Here's what the BBC had to say about Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370:

1,460 Miles, 2,350 Kilometers, West by Southwest of Perth

(From Australian government, US National Transportation Savety Board, Malaysian government, via BBC News; used w/o permission.)

"Missing MH370: World's most difficult recovery"
Rebecca Morelle, BBC News (March 20, 2014)

"The search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane is now focussed on the south Indian Ocean.

"Ships and planes are hunting for two large objects spotted in satellite images that could be floating debris.

"But if these are located and confirmed as wreckage from flight MH370 - and that is still a big if - one of the most complex recovery operations ever undertaken could lie ahead...."

I wasn't surprised to see that it's now a recovery, not a rescue, operation. It is still, I think, very remotely possible that the 239 people who disappeared may still be alive. But that seems increasingly unlikely.

Some folks deal with uncertainty by distracting themselves with unrelated activities: a job; household chores; exercise; whatever. Others apparently drag a trawl net into their mind's abyssal zone in search of explanations.

I've seen some colorful conspiracy theories hatching: including the usual 'it was space aliens.' Someone even spent time debunking a rumor that MH370 had reappeared in — what else? — the Bermuda Triangle.

Sometimes that sort of nonsense can be amusing. In a situation where more than 200 people are either dead or stranded without supplies: not so much.

"Possible Object"

(From BBC News, used w/o permission.)
"If the objects in the satellite images do belong to the plane, they could help scientists to find the crash site"

---

"...The first stage would be to carefully examine any fragments of the craft found. Their condition, for example whether they show any signs of an explosion, could begin to shed light on what happened to the plane.

"Importantly, they could also help to narrow down the location of the crash, and the possible site of the plane's 'black box' flight recorders.

"But David Mearns, director of Blue Water Recoveries Ltd, says because of the amount of time that has passed since the flight vanished on 8 March, this would not be easy.

" 'If the debris is confirmed, the positions and times that any pieces are found will be clues that will have to be used to determine where the plane actually impacted,' he explains.

" 'But in this instance, we are talking many days after the plane would have crashed - that debris will have floated for a very large distance - and potentially an uncertain distance. If we don't know what the winds and currents were doing at that time, it makes the search box enormous.'..."
(Rebecca Morelle, BBC News)

Searchers may find one or more of MH370's flight recorders by tracking the acoustic pingers: if they're still working, and searchers get close enough before the devices run out of their 30-day lifespan.

The good news is that, MH370 crashed into the southern Indian Ocean, and if searchers find the wreckage - - - that's a lot of "ifs."

That part of the Indian ocean has some of the roughest seas in the world: but the ocean floor, some 4,000 meters down, it's smoother than the submerged mountains and ravines that held Air France 447's wreckage.

I think it's prudent to remember that it took searchers about two years to locate the Air France 447 wreckage and start piecing together what went wrong.

Friday Morning, March 21

(From Lai Seng Sin/AP, via Bloomberg, used w/o permission.)
"A woman leaves a message for passengers aboard a missing Malaysia Airlines plane, at a shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia."

"Missing Plane Maintained Steady Speed Over Indian Ocean"
Alan Levin, Bloomberg (March 21, 2014)

"The missing Malaysian airliner may have cruised steadily across the Indian Ocean after diverting from its route, according to an analysis of satellite pings, the clearest idea yet on how investigators pinpointed a search zone.

"Engineers at Inmarsat Plc (ISAT), whose satellite picked up the pings, plotted seven positions for the Boeing Co. (BA) 777-200ER on March 8, Chris McLaughlin, a company spokesman, said in an interview. The plane flew steadily away from the satellite over the equator while pinging, McLaughlin said....

"...When officials estimated the plane was flying at or near its cruising speed of more than 500 miles (800 kilometers) an hour, it produced a probable path the engineers were 'very confident' about, McLaughlin said. The engineers don't know the plane's track for certain because the satellite pings can only be used to estimate an arc along the earth's surface where it would have been, he said....

I decided to add this Bloomberg article to today's post, since it's among the most detailed I've seen. The bottom line is still the same, though: there's been no verified sighting of wreckage from Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, and all 239 people are still missing.

There's also some analysis here, and a detail that I don't remember seeing elsewhere.

Flight MH370 Landed? Unlikely

"...If the Inmarsat estimates are accurate, it would have been impossible for the plane to have landed before its satellite transmitter sent the final ping at 8:11 a.m., almost seven hours after its last known position as it left Malaysian airspace, according to McLaughlin's account. Because the 777 burns more fuel at lower altitude, it also suggests the plane remained at cruising altitude.

"The plane was flying at 542 miles an hour at 35,000 feet (10,668 meters) at 1:21 a.m. when its transponder stopped functioning and it disappeared from Malaysian's civilian radar system, according to FlightRadar24, a flight-tracking company.

"The engineers at Inmarsat were able to validate their estimates of the plane's position by matching its position at 1:07 a.m., when it sent a burst of data through its Aircraft Communications and Reporting System, McLaughlin said. That final transmission on Acars included a GPS position that was used to calibrate the other estimates, he said...."

Much as I would like to believe that the Boeing 777 landed safely, and that everyone on board survived: it seems very, very unlikely:

"Andrew Herdman, director-general of the Kuala Lumpur-based Association of Asia Pacific Airlines, talks about Malaysian Airline System Bhd.'s missing Flight 370. He speaks Rishaad Salamat on Bloomberg Television's 'On the Move.' "
(Description of Bloomberg video: "Landing, Hiding MH370 'Extremely Unlikely': Herdman" (March 17, 2014))

Although the evil mastermind and his henchmen might successfully hide an airliner in a spy story (remember "Thunderball"?), real life doesn't necessarily work that way.

A Boeing 777 is more than 200 feet long, with a wingspan to match. That's a lot of metal to hide: particularly in these days, with robot satellites keeping digital eyes peeled.

Flight MH370: A Long Wait

If you get the impression that this is an unusually long wait for some trace of the missing flight to turn up: you're right.

"...The longest period in modern passenger-airline history between a disappearance and initial findings of debris was seven years ago, when Adam Air Flight 574 went missing off the coast of Indonesia's South Sulawesi. The Boeing 737-400, operated by PT Adam Skyconnection Airlines, lost contact with air traffic control Jan. 1, 2007. Wreckage wasn't found until 10 days later....

"...In the search for Air France 447 wreckage, authorities were able to narrow down a 5,000 nautical-mile area after finding floating objects five days following the crash. They also had a last known position plus four minutes of signals from the plane's so-called Acars system, which was turned off on Flight 370.

"Even with those clues, the pings from Flight 447's recorders weren't picked up. It took two voyages over almost a two-year period to find the debris field with unmanned underwater vehicles that searched the ocean floor with sonar equipment...."
(David Fickling, Alan Levin, Thomas Black, Bloomberg (March 17, 2014))

Patience isn't easy, particularly when so many folks desperately want to know what happened to their family, friends, and fellow-workers. But I think cultivating patience is better than the alternatives.

Finally, and no pressure at all: this is just a suggestion. Prayer couldn't hurt: for the folks on Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, and everyone connected with them.

Related posts:

• "Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: Questions; Speculation; and a Few Facts"
  Another War-on-Terror Blog (March 16, 2014)
• "Air France 447: How Not to Handle a Stall"
  (May 27, 2011)
• "Black Boxes are Fine: Glass Boxes Might be Better"
  (August 23, 2010)
• "Air France 447: Weather, Technology, and Questions"
  (June 13, 2009)
• "Air France Flight 447: What's Known, What's Not Known"
  (June 12, 2009)

Air France 447: How Not to Handle a Stall

Air France flight 447 was supposed to take 228 folks from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. Instead, it crashed into the Atlantic. Nobody survived.

That was in June, 2009.

Searchers found wreckage of AF 447 this year: on the floor of the Atlantic, more than a mile under water. They also recovered the flight's data recorders. Pieces of the 'black boxes,' anyway.

A French agency, the BEA, has been looking into why the Airbus fell out of the sky.

Part of the BEA report hit the news today.

Before getting into that, here's what the airline had to say about the accident, in part:

"...Air France praised the three pilots, who 'demonstrated a totally professional attitude and were committed to carrying out their task to the very end,' the airline said in a statement...."
(Wall Street Journal, via FoxNews.com)

That statement may be accurate.

The French BEA's early report shows that the Airbus engines were working normally when the airliner went into a stall: and during the three-plus minutes it took for the airliner to fall into the Atlantic.

The Airbus A330's pitot tubes, a sort of air speed sensor, are known to have trouble with icing. The pilots knew about that, or should have. The pilots also should have known what to do if the things iced up. And what to do if the airliner stalled.

Instead, they did the opposite.

Nose Down During a Stall: Not Up

"Black Box Shows Air France Captain Was Absent When Descent Began"
The Wall Street Journal, via FoxNews.com (May 27, 2011)

"The flight recorders from an Air France plane that crashed nearly two years ago show that the captain only arrived in the cockpit after the plane had begun its fateful 3 1/2-minute descent, officials said Friday.

"The initial findings of the French air accident investigation agency, the BEA, based on a reading of the black boxes recovered from the ocean depths, found that the captain had been resting when the emergency began....

"... 'At the time of the event, the two co-pilots were seated in the cockpit and the captain was resting,' a BEA statement says. The captain returned to the cockpit about 1 1/2 minutes after the autopilot disengaged at 2:10 a.m. and 5 seconds, Coordinated Universal Time....

"...Reacting to wildly fluctuating airspeed indications ... pilots of an Air France jetliner in 2009 continued to pull the nose up sharply - contrary to standard procedure - even as the Airbus A330 plummeted toward the Atlantic Ocean, according to information released Friday by French accident investigators.

"The long-awaited factual report, though it doesn't include any formal conclusions about the cause of the June 2009 crash that killed 228 people, provides details about a prolonged stall that lasted more than three and a half minutes. Throughout the descent, according to the report, 'inputs made by the [pilot flying] were mainly nose-up' and the 'angle of attack,' or the position of the longitudinal axis of the plane in relation to the airflow 'remained above 35 degrees.'

"If an airplane has entered an aerodynamic stall, which means its wings have lost necessary lift to remain airborne, from their earliest training pilots are taught to immediately push the nose down to regain speed, lift and maneuverability.

"The report also paints a somewhat unflattering picture of a seemingly confused cockpit, with the crew making extreme inputs to their flight controls and the engines spooling up to full power and later the thrust levers being pulled back to idle. At one point, according to the report, both pilots sitting in front of the controls tried to put in simultaneous commands....

"...Pilots are trained to avoid such simultaneous commands."

Oh, dear.

Figuring out what went wrong won't bring back any of the 228 people who died on Air France 447. But it might show how to keep another air crew from - apparently - making the same mistakes.

Related posts:

• "Air France 447: Part of a Black (Orange, Really) Box Found"
  Another War-on-Terror Blog (April 28, 2011)
• "Black Boxes are Fine: Glass Boxes Might be Better"
  (August 23, 2010)
• "Air France 447: Weather, Technology, and Questions"
  (June 13, 2009)
• "Air France Flight 447: What's Known, What's Not Known"
  (June 12, 2009)

More:

• "Crash Report Shows Confused Cockpit"
  Andy Pasztor & Daniel Michaels, Business, The Wall Street Journal (MAY 27, 2011)

Boeing 747-8: Big Can be "Green"

"Boeing Puts Another Behemoth in the Sky"
Jason Paur, Autopia, Wired (February 11, 2011)

"Boeing pulls the sheet off its biggest airliner ever this weekend, the 747-8 Intercontinental. It is an extreme makeover of the plane that ushered in the jumbo jet era, but despite its impressive tech and imposing size it won't be a big seller. Still, it offers further evidence that Boeing has found a winning strategy in its race against Airbus to make commercial aviation cleaner and greener.

"The latest iteration of the venerable 747, which made its first flight 42 years ago this week, comes as the industry has spent the past few years debating the merits of two all-new aircraft, the gargantuan Airbus A380 and the technologically advanced Boeing 787 Dreamliner...."

"Greener" is a comparative term, of course. For some folks, "green" seems to mean eating nothing but organically-grown vegetables off hand-thrown pottery - and being upset at contractors who act as if wood grows on trees.

Then there are folks like engineers at Boeing, who seem to think that being "green" can include developing a King-Kong-size airliner that uses less fuel for its size than earlier models - and makes less noise while doing so.

That sort of "green" is something the Lemming can respect.

Or, as the Wired article put it:

"...Airbus bet on moving a lot of passengers from hub to hub cheaply in giant airplanes. Boeing thought the future lies in moving fewer people point-to-point in super-efficient aircraft. And while the A380, which seats as many as 525 people, allowed Airbus to boast it makes the world's biggest airliner, bragging rights only go so far. It's the bottom line that matters...."

It's the Lemming's opinion that, in the long run, being "green" and being profitable aren't all that incompatible.

Which reminds the Lemming of mechanical flying penguins. Which is another topic.

Sort-of-related posts:

• "Lemming Tracks: Blasphemy! Or, 'We're All Gonna Die' Predictions That Fizzled"
  (December 30, 2010)
• "Electric Cars That Actually Work"
  (November 2, 2010)
• "Boeing CST-100 Spaceship: Passenger Service to ISS, Commercial Space Stations"
  (July 21, 2010)
• "Dreamliner: Boeing's Incredible Plastic Airliner"
  (July 19, 2010)
• "X-51 Waverider, Bullet Trains: Change Happens"
  (March 11, 2010)

More:

• "747 Family"
  Commercial Airplanes, Boeing

Qantas: 'There was No Explosion' - - - Oh-kay

The Lemming generally doesn't put 'news' in this blog, but something in this article was too weird to ignore:

"Qantas Grounds All A380s After Midair Scare"
Associated Press via FOXNews (November 4, 2010)

"Qantas grounded its Airbus A380 fleet after one of the superjumbo jets blew out an engine Thursday, shooting flames and raining large metal chunks before making a safe emergency landing in Singapore with 459 people aboard.

"It was most serious midair incident involving the double-decker A380, the world's largest and latest airliner, since it debuted in October 2007 with Singapore Airlines flying it to Sydney -- the same route that Qantas flight QF34 was flying when it was stricken.

"Qantas said there had been no explosion, but witnesses aboard the plane and on the ground reported blasts. Officials in Indonesia said the engine trouble could not have been related to recent volcanic eruptions of Mount Merapi, some 800 miles to the east...."

The Lemming can understand why someone in Qantas might say that 'there had been no explosion.' It seems that the first thing some bureaucrats and managers, faced with an unpleasant fact, do is say it ain't so and fire up the paper shredders.

Understandable or not, the Lemming doesn't think it's wise to say "there had been no explosion," particularly when witnesses heard one and an international news service took pictures of what resulted from the non-explosion that didn't happen:


Reuters, via Telegraph.co.uk, used w/o permission.
The A380 engine that didn't explode.


Reuters, via Telegraph.co.uk, used w/o permission.
Debris on the ground, from the explosion that didn't happen. (Batam, Indonesia)

Still, whoever made that denial on behalf of Qantas could have done worse. We could have learned that the Airbus A380 landed because of something like an abrupt alteration of structural parameters resulting in compression wave propagation through surrounding gaseous medium and distribution of component materials over adjacent terrain.

The Lemming isn't sure which would sound more suspicious: flat-out denial in the face of evidence, or trying to bury an unpleasant fact under a pile of prolixity.

Other articles have pointed out that the Airbus A380 is safe. They're probably right.

The pilot, quoted in a CNN article, handled the situation better. He calmly told passengers that there was a "technical issue." Brief, accurate, and appropriately bereft of emotional content.

"There was no explosion?" That sounds more like implausible denial.

More:

• "Qantas pilot to passengers: 'We have a technical issue' "
  CNN (November 4, 2010)
• "Qantas A380 Airbus emergency is third scare for superjumbo"
  Telegraph.co.uk (November 4, 2010)

---

From that CNN article:

"Qantas pilot to passengers: 'We have a technical issue' "
CNN (November 4, 2010)

"After part of an engine fell off a Qantas plane in mid-flight Thursday, a passenger shooting a personal video recorded the pilot announcing, calmly, that the flight was experiencing a 'technical issue.'

" 'I do apologize,' the pilot begins. 'I'm sure you are aware we have a technical issue with our No. 2 engine. We have dealt with the situation. The aircraft is secure at this stage. We're going to have to hold for sometime whilst we do lighten our load by dumping some fuel.'

"The pilot then tells passengers on the Airbus A380 that there is a 'checklist we have to perform.'..."

The Lemming would much rather have a pilot say something like that.

Consider this alternative:

• You're looking out the window, somewhere over the Pacific
• You see part of an engine blow out, spraying
  • Flames
  • Debris
  • Smoke
• You hear a BANG!!
• The pilot's voice comes over the cabin speakers, saying:
  • "There was no explosion"

Reassuring? The Lemming doesn't think so.

It could be worse, though. The pilot could start singing "Daisy, Daisy," like the HAL 9000 computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey."

---

Update (November 24, 2010)

Sounds like someone in Qantas got a reality check.

"Two airlines ground A380s after emergency landing"
Reuters (November 4, 2010)

"Qantas Airways and Singapore Airlines suspended flights of Airbus A380 superjumbos on Thursday after an engine appeared to break apart in flight, forcing a Qantas jet to make an emergency landing in Singapore.

"Indonesian TV showed pictures of debris on a nearby island which it said belonged to the Qantas Airways plane, and one passenger aboard flight QF32 reported hearing a 'massive bang.' Qantas described it as a 'significant' engine failure.

"Authorities said none of the 459 people on board were hurt.

"Qantas and Singapore Airlines both grounded their fleet of A380s and British engine maker Rolls-Royce issued a statement urging operators of the aircraft to perform safety checks on its Trent 900 engines.

"German airline Lufthansa said it would conduct those checks without interrupting flights.

" 'This was a significant engine failure,' Qantas Chief Executive Alan Joyce told reporters in Sydney. 'We are not underestimating the significance of this issue.'

"Rolls-Royce, whose shares were down more than 5 percent, said earlier it was working with authorities to understand the incident and Airbus, whose shares fell 4 percent, said it would provide full technical assistance to Australian and French accident investigators.

"One of the Airbus A380's four Rolls-Royce engines failed minutes after it had left Singapore for Sydney. The flight had begun in London.

"Passengers said they saw parts of the engine fall off.

" 'I just heard this massive bang, like a shotgun going off,' Tyler Wooster told Australia's Network Nine television. 'Part of the skin had peeled off and you could see the foam underneath, pieces of broken wires sticking out.'

"Qantas, which operates six A380s, said it was grounding the aircraft pending a full investigation...."

---

Updated (November 4, 2010)

More, about the engine that didn't explode.

"Debris rains down from sky on charmed islanders"
Karen Kissane, The Age (Australia) (November 4, 2010)

"A STAFF member was the first person in Elsadai school on Batam to notice. She was watching a Qantas plane skim across the sky when suddenly she heard what sounded like a huge explosion. She later told the school principal, Christy Sembel, 'The aeroplane make a noise like "phwoooar"!'..."


(Reuters, via The Age, used w/o permission)
"An engine casing that fell on Batam, and a piece of debris that fell through the roof of Elsadai school. Photo: Reuters"

"Qantas engine failure "the scariest thing I've seen""
Sanjeev Miglani, Reuters (November 4, 2010)

"Passengers on the giant Qantas Airways jet forced to make an emergency landing in Singapore on Thursday said they heard a loud bang and saw pieces of one of the engines fall off soon after take-off for Sydney.

"The Airbus A380, which had originated in London and was carrying 459 people, suffered failure of one of its four engines.

"Australian officials said no one on board was injured. One passenger said an explosion ripped off the engine's rear casing.

" 'I just heard this massive bang, like a shotgun going off,' Tyler Wooster told Australia's Network Nine television. 'Part of the skin had peeled off and you could see the foam underneath, pieces of broken wires sticking out.'

"Thursday's incident was one of most serious for the A380, the world's biggest passenger jet, in its three years of commercial flight. Qantas said it was grounding its fleet of six A380s pending a full investigation.

" 'I was sitting over the wing, where the No. 2 engine is. I was looking out of the window on the tarmac as we took off,' Ulf Waschbusch, another passenger, told Reuters.

"Former aircraft engineer Neil Shephard was also on board.

" 'Four or five minutes after the flight there was a loud bang. The pilot said there was a technical issue with the plane and then we circled around for an hour to dump the fuel,' he told Reuters.

" 'During the landing, it was a bit wobbly. We could not tell the extent of the problem until we got out of the plane where we could see one hole around six to seven inches wide on the wing. The pilot did a good job, it could have been worse.'..."

Yep, "it could have been worse."

Around the World, Solo - 77 Years Ago Today

"July 22, 1933: Wiley Post Flies Around the World Alone"
This Day in Tech, Wired (July 21, 2010)

"1933: Pilot Wiley Post returns to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York, 7 days, 18 hours, 49 minutes after leaving. Aided by new technology, his flight is the first solo circumnavigation by air, and it's also the fastest-ever around-the-world-trip.

"Born in Texas, Post wanted to be a pilot after seeing his first airplane at a county fair at the age of 15. He got his break at age 24, when a barnstormer let him fill in for his injured skydiver. Post performed several jumps, but always wanted to be the pilot, not the skydiver.

"His dream was almost ruined while working in the oil fields to earn money for an airplane: He lost his left eye in an accident. Despite the lack of depth perception, Post was able to earn his pilot's license and, with his workers' compensation checks, bought his first airplane...."

Some of the new technology was 'high tech,' like his autopilot and radio direction finder.

Then there was the sleep-prevention technology that Post invented while on this around-the-world flight. He tied a wrench to one finger with a piece of string, and then held on to the wrench. If he started falling asleep, his hand relaxed - releasing the wrench, which tugged at his finger, waking him up.

Airliner of the Future: Prototype in 1950s

"Northrup Wing"
Flying Wing, Future Flight, Tales of Future Past

"The Northrup Flying Wing was an aircraft that can only be called ahead of its time. This was a machine that by some uncanny fluke managed to leap off the pages of Air Wonder Stories and into the skies. This had to be the aeroplane of the FUTURE. It had that bold, clean line to it; that classic shape that stood out like the spindle shape of a V2 rocket...."


(Northrop, via Tales of Future Past, used w/o permission)

That's a concept drawing for a passenger version of the experimental bomber. The flying wing was abandoned in the early fifties, because of problems with stability. Today, we've got control systems that can handle that sort of thing: so the luxurious passenger airliner imagined by Northrop may exist - someday.

The 1953 version of "War of the Worlds" features the Northrop Flying Wing, briefly.

Flight 188, Distracted Pilots, and Dangerously Impractical Software?

"FAA Releases Transcripts of Northwest Flight That Overflew Minneapolis"
FOXNews (November 27, 2009)

"New transcripts from the Northwest Airlines flight that overflew Minneapolis show air traffic controllers asking the crew about what happened, and whether they had enough fuel.

"Air traffic controllers asked the Northwest Airlines pilots who overflew Minneapolis repeatedly about what had happened on the plane before the pilots responded, according to transcripts released Friday by the Federal Aviation Administration.

"The Oct. 21 flight, which took off from San Diego and overshot its Minneapolis destination by 150 miles, had been out of contact for 77 minutes before controllers re-established contact, leaving air traffic controllers scratching their heads...."

After that little incident over northeastern America, back on September 11, 2001, air traffic controllers - and the Department of Homeland Security - get very interested when airliner flight crews go silent and fly right past their scheduled destination.

The article gives excerpts from the transcript, outlining the conversation between the pilots and ground controllers. The gist of the chat, as I see it, was 'are you alone, on the flight deck, and in control of the airliner?'

"...Air traffic controllers ultimately had the pilots perform several turns to verify that they were in control of the plane. It landed safely in Minneapolis, and was met at the gate by police...."

More good news was that Flight 188 still had enough fuel to land.

And, this article says what the pilots were probably doing on their laptops, when they should have been flying the plane:

"...The pilots have told the National Transportation Safety Board that they were discussing their company's complicated new crew-scheduling program over their laptop computers as their plane flew past Minneapolis by 150 miles. Northwest was bought by Delta Air Lines Inc. last year, and the company has been working to integrate its computer systems."

About a month ago, after learning that the pilots had dropped out of communication for over an hour - and been distracted by their laptops when they should have been flying the plane - I somewhat unkindly wrote, "I don't play Donkey Kong while driving the family's van." (October 26, 2009)

I still think that those two were daft to act the way they did, but their behavior makes a little more sense.

From the looks of it, the new Delta-Northwest merger may be run by the sort of clueless executives and managers who infest the Dilbert comic strip. (www.dilbert.com) Dilbert is an engineer, working in a technology company - and whose manager once used an Etch A Sketch^®, under the impression that it was a laptop computer. That manager is a tech expert, compared to the CEOs, who are even further removed - and insulated - from reality.

Granted, the pilots should not have been wrestling with some Kafkaesque 'new and improved' crew-scheduling program.

But this new bit of information suggests that the problem may not be just two pilots whose spiritual home may be somewhere in management. Maybe whoever is running Delta/Northwest needs to consider the possibility that an airline should be interested more in getting people from one place to another, without having interceptors ready to fly up and see what was wrong: and less on implementing dangerously impractical software.

Related posts:

• "Northwest Flight 188: Distracted by a Laptop?!"
  (October 26, 2009)
• "Northwest Flight 188 Overshoots MSP - Time to Reconsider Humans on Flight Crews?"
  (October 23, 2009)

More:

• "FAA transcripts show efforts to reach flight 188"
  The Associated Press (November 27, 2009)
• "FAA releases audio of communications with wayward NWA flight"
  Minneapolis Star-Tribune (November 27, 2009)
• "Pilots of Errant Northwest Flight Cite Distraction in Transcript"
  The Wall Street Journal (November 27, 2009)

Gamma Rays from Lightning: By Jove!

"Lightning-Storm Gamma Rays Could Harm Air Travelers"
Wired Science (December 15, 2008)

"The most energetic particles in the electromagnetic spectrum could pose a danger to commercial airline passengers.

"About every 3000 hours of flying time, a plane is hit with a bolt of lightning. Recently, spacecraft have found gamma rays can be created by thunder storms, and according to new research presented at the American Geophysical Union annual meeting this week, the rays could be intense enough to cause radiation sickness.

" 'Everywhere we look, we're seeing x-rays and gamma rays flying out of thunderstorms and lightning,' said Joseph Dwyer, a physicist at the Florida Institute of Technology and lead author of the study. 'The gamma rays coming out of thunderstorms are so intense we can measure these 600 kilometers away and so bright that it almost blinds the spacecraft.'..."

I know: This sounds like the whiplash scam a few decades back, where being in a traffic accident, no matter how minor, could yield big profits - at least for the lawyer. (And I also know that some of those whiplash injuries were real. Which didn't keep ethically-challenged people from slapping on a neck brace and demanding big bucks.)

Like (real) whiplash injuries, though, this seems to be real. Astrophysicists had assumed that extremely powerful gamma rays were generated by large-scale events, like supernovae. Turns out that lightning can - and does - produce gamma rays: and, interestingly, that the smaller the source, the more intense the gamma rays.

I'm not getting too worried, though. Not just because I fly, on average, about once every 20 years or so. The sort of "Airline Flight Dies or Radiation Overdose" headlines haven't happened, in decades of stratospheric passenger runs - which hints that the 'perfect storm' situation for dangerous radiation levels is 'way below the one in 3,000 flying hours for lightning strikes.

This is important - and fascinating - research, but I don't think it's a reason to stop flying.

More:

• "A ground level gamma-ray burst observed in association with rocket-triggered lightning"
  Geophysical Research Letters (October 3, 2003)

Air France 447: Weather, Technology, and Questions

"Air France Flight 447: A detailed meteorological analysis"
Weather Graphics (last updated June 9, 2009)

(If you're not all that interested in a detailed and rather technical article, scroll down a bit: I'm covering two articles in this post.)

"I received an e-mail (see the comments page) from a scientist affiliated with the NASA TRMM mission indicating that no lightning was detected during a 90-second pass of the system that affected Air France Flight 447. This agrees with evidence from the WWLL sferic lightning network for that date. A review of the literature confirms these findings and suggests that convective systems over the equatorial oceanic regions do indeed exhibit an unusual lack of lightning activity. In a 1993 paper E. J. Zipser cites 'many examples of intense mesoscale systems, such as squall lines ... extending to 13–17 km in altitude, but that nevertheless produce few reports of lightning. This reinforces the idea, based on data from other tropical ocean regions and from global satellite data, that in spite of the ubiquitous "hot towers" over tropical oceans, marine cumulonimbus produce little lightning.'..."

Still reading?

That's a pretty good sample of the page. There are diagrams and images, like the one thumbnailed here, to illustrate radar and other data that relate to the sort of storm Air France Flight 447 flew into.

This page isn't the most reader-friendly discussion you'll ever find of what happened to AF 447. But, it's the best and most complete discussion of the weather I've found, that's remotely accessible to the average reader.

Lightning or no, the Airbus A330-200 came down in very bad weather: "...Temperature trends suggested that the entire system was at peak intensity...."

The author gives a detailed summary of what might have happened, and a conclusion that we don't know everything there is to know about the flight:

"...Overall what we know for sure is weather was a factor and the flight definitely crossed through a thunderstorm complex. ... It's my opinion that tropical storm complexes identical to this one have probably been crossed hundreds of times over the years by other flights without serious incident....

"...We can almost certainly count on some unexpected surprises once the CVR is recovered...."

I appreciated the detail given by the author. A dozen airliners flying through an area of thunderstorms seems less daft now.

Another point which sets this article apart from so much news coverage is that it discusses possible equipment failures other than the Pitot tubes. For example, it's possible, if not necessarily likely, that the engines of AF 447 failed "due to precipitation or ice ingestion".

---

"Is Flight 447's 'Fly-by-Wire' Aircraft Technology Safe?"
FOXNews (June 12, 2009)

" As investigators search for clues to why Air France Flight 447 crashed, former pilots and aviation experts are debating whether the "fly-by-wire" technology in modern aircraft makes it difficult or impossible for a pilot to control a plane in distress.

"The Airbus A330-200 that crashed into the Atlantic on May 31 — killing all 228 people aboard — relied on electronic rather than hydraulic or mechanical systems to control the aircraft.

"It's akin to having a computer control your car, with the electronic brain doing the steering, hitting the gas and pumping the brakes as you tell it what to do.

"Some pilots claim the old way was better. In an emergency, they say, passengers are better off having a skilled pilot working all the systems.

"But planes built by Airbus, a European consortium based in Toulouse, France, give computers, not humans, the final authority on flight decisions...."

The article discusses two design philosophies, pointing out that both have something in their favor.

Airbus's fly-by-wire system has the advantage of allowing airliners to put pilots with less experience and training in control of airliners, and still get from point A to point B. And, if a pilot tries to force the airplane into a maneuver it's not designed for, the flight control system won't allow it.

Boeing's newer airliners have similar fly-by-wire technology, but Boeing includes an override, so that the pilot can take full control of the aircraft in an emergency.

As far as which design philosophy is 'right,' that's something that probably won't be decided for years.

"...In 2000, Capt. Paul McCarthy, then the group's [The Airline Pilots Association] executive air safety chairman, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that its pilots had 'strong opinions' on the issue.

" 'There are good arguments on both sides,' McCarthy told the paper. 'Both make legitimate points. And both sides are correct ... It's a good, healthy debate that will continue for the next five to 10 years until everyone is confident which way we should go.' " (FOXNews)

Related posts:

• "Air France Flight 447: What's Known, What's Not Known"
  (June 12, 2009)
• "Air France Flight 447 Investigators Find Terror List Names: Suggestive, But Far From Proof"
  Another War-on-Terror Blog (June 10, 2009)
• "US Airways Flight 1549: Lost Two Engines, No People"
  (January 17, 2009)

Air France Flight 447: What's Known, What's Not Known

"Air France crash: What do we know?"
CNN (June 11, 2009)

"In one way we know a huge amount about the loss of Air France flight 447 -- much more than is usual so soon after an accident. But in another, we know nothing at all.

"The simple fact is that the blizzard of airworthiness directives, company memos, weather reports, technical specifications and diverse other documents that have surfaced since last week constitute entirely circumstantial evidence.

"Aviation history is replete with accidents with causes utterly unrelated to what first seemed the obvious explanation...."

This article is a good summary of what's known - and what's not known - about what happened to Air France 447.

And, I think it is a good reminder of the value of suspended judgment. That something bad happened to Flight 447 is obvious. What that bad thing - or things - is - or are - simply isn't known at this time.

---

"Brazil: 6 more bodies found in jet crash"
The Associated Press (June 12, 2009)

"Six more bodies were recovered from the Atlantic Ocean where an Air France jet crashed, Brazilian officials said Friday, as the race to find the black boxes and gather key evidence from human remains and debris gained urgency...."

The good news is that some pieces of the Airbus - including a large section Flight 447's tail - have been recovered. And, that some bodies have been found.

The bad news is that, given conditions in the area, searchers are running out of time.

---

"Air France Flight 447: First bodies had minimal clothing, no burns"
Aerospace News, SeattlePI blog (June 12, 2009)

"Beyond an increasing body count, little new information emerged on Friday from official sources regarding the crash of Air France Flight 447.

"(By official sources, I mean the Brazilian military's official bulletins, France's investigations unit BEA, Air France and Airbus.)

"Brazilian military searchers pulled three more bodies out of the ocean on Thursday night, bringing the total body count to 44. The French Navy has also found an undisclosed number of bodies, according to Brazilian military bulletins.

"The plane crashed with 288 on board...."

This blog post is one of the more detailed one-stop sources of information I've found, and includes a timeline (with links) of coverage of the Air France Flight 447 disaster. The links are to Seattle Post-Intelligencer articles, of course: but it's still a convenient place to start.

The blog's author also gives specific numbers - which often helps puts facts in perspective. The first 16 bodies analyzed weren't wearing clothes, and weren't burned. The Buenos Aires Herald article the author cited as a source drew conclusions about what that means that professionals don't seem to have made.

Just the same, it does seem reasonable that, if AF 447 broke up in the air, people might have died before hitting the water, not been burned, and had their clothing torn away by air rushing past the wreckage.

Certain Knowledge of Air France 447's Fate? We May Never Know

I hope that a reasonable explanation of what happened to AF 447 and the 288 people on board can be made: one with a substantial amount of evidence to back it up. That will, perhaps, be some comfort to family and friends who lost people in the disaster: and may help make air travel safer.

Meanwhile, I'll be very skeptical of assertions about what 'obviously' happened.

Related post:

• "Air France Flight 447 Investigators Find Terror List Names: Suggestive, But Far From Proof"
  Another War-on-Terror Blog (June 10, 2009)

Air Force One: You May Not Have Seen This Many Photos in One Place

"Welcome aboard Air Force One"
Photographers / What makes a great picture? Reuters Blogs (March 6, 2009)

"Only two identical aircraft exist in the world which both share the same high-level function. They mirror one another precisely except for the numeric identifier on the tail. One reads 28000, the other 29000.

"They're as sleek as they are majestic. Anticipation runs high when either travels and both are red carpet worthy. They are concealed around-the-clock in a protective cocoon while being constantly pampered at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland...."

Lots of photos, quite a lot of description. This is one of the more detailed write-ups on Air Force One that I've seen. Someone described the post as "Awesome Air Force One photo blog report from Reuters" - My "awesome" setting is a bit higher than this, but this is a very good, informative, post.

---

Thanks to bnsullivan on Twitter, for the heads-up on this post.

What's Inside Air Force One?

"Air Force One Floor Plan"
How Stuff Works

This is mostly a medium-size (800 x 615 pixels) floor plan on Air Force One, showing where things like the galley, medical office (right next to the galley), guest section, and flight deck are.

Just the place to go, if you want to imagine you're a guest, or the president, flying on the American president's airliner.

Pretty cool, actually.

US Airways Flight 1549: Lost Two Engines, No People

"Last moments of stricken Flight 1549"
The Sydney Morning Herald (January 18, 2009)

"SILENTLY, with no outward signs of the turmoil and heartache onboard, US Airways Flight 1549 prepares for one of the most remarkable crashes in aviation history.

"With the icy waters of New York's Hudson River below and a city largely oblivious to its plight, the plane's Captain Chesley Sullenberger undertakes the manoeuvre of his life.

"Four minutes earlier, the Airbus A320 struck birds after taking off from LaGuardia Airport, disabling its engines. At 1500 feet (457 metres), Captain Sullenberger faced his worst fear...."

Flight 1549: Not Your Typical Trip

An airliner, with no working engines, coming down in New York City's Hudson River, in the middle of winter, is not an ideal situation. Here in Minnesota, we have a phrase for the aftermath: "It could have been worse."

Much worse.

Everybody survived. Sounds like there's even been some luggage recovered.

One of the passengers said that the plane's crew were "phenomenal, in all respects." The pilot, Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III, has gotten quite a bit of attention. For good reason:

" 'It would appear that the pilot did a masterful job of landing the plane in the river and then making sure that everybody got out,' Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a news conference Thursday.

" 'I had a long conversation with the pilot. He walked the plane twice after everybody else was off and tried to verify that there was nobody else on board -- and assures us there was not.' " (CNN)


(from FOXNews, used without permission)
'Any landing you walk away from is a good one.'

Emergency Ditching Instructions for Overland Flights: "How Stupid is THAT?"

Emergency ditching instructions for an overland flight of a thousand miles, with just a few hundred feet of open water here and there along the way, sounds like a waste of time.

One fellow wrote about thinking: "...'How stupid is THAT?' as prerecorded safety announcements would say, 'In the unlikely event of a water landing, your seat cushion will serve as a flotation device.'

"What moron, I would think, insisted that they run that stupid tape on every landlocked flight?..." (InformationWeek) That was then, he said: now, he's decided to "take some responsibility for my own personal risk management and pay attention...."

Sounds like a good idea to me.

More:

• "Surveillance Video Released of US Airways Plane Landing in Hudson River"
  FOXNews (January 17, 2009)
• "US Airways pilot made his mark as a Texas teen"
  The Dallas Morning News (January 17, 2009)
• "US Airways Crash And Hero Pilot Sully Sullenberger"
  InformationWeek (January 16, 2009)
• "How do you land a plane on water?"
  BBC (January 16, 2009)
• "US Airways captain the 'consummate pilot'"
  CNN (January 16, 2009)

A Little Matter of a Software Glitch in American Air Traffic Control, and 600+ Flights

"Airports Return to Normal After More Than 600 Flights Delayed by Apparent Computer Crash"
FOXNews (August 27, 2008)

" Air traffic returned to normal after a problem believed to be a software glitch was fixed, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

"The FAA grounded hundreds of planes Tuesday after an apparent breakdown in the program the agency uses to log flight plans, but the matter was resolved by late evening.

" 'Everything's back to normal,' FAA spokeswoman Diane Spitaliere told FOXNews.com Wednesday. '[The problem] was cleared up late last night.'..."

The bad news: Lots of people were left up in the air, literally, last Tuesday.

More bad news: As of Wednesday, the FAA techs hadn't figured out exactly what went wrong.

Good news: Whatever it was, it looks like we're looking at a software glitch, and not hackers.

A Website Dedicated to Convair's B-36, "The Peacemaker"

"The B-36 Page"

"Six turning and four burning!"

"This site is dedicated to the mightiest of American aircraft:

"The Convair B-36 Bomber.

"The Convair B-36 was the largest American bomber ever built. It never fired a shot or dropped a bomb in anger - thus earning the nickname "The Peacemaker"."

Photos, links, and stats. I think I'll be going back to this website. But then, I'm rather interested in aircraft, past and present.

Really Big Radio-Controlled Airplane

"Huge R/C Plane" "You could fly a dog in this thing"

Just under 2 minutes of video, of a really big radio-controlled model. Impressive.

Boeing Building Laser Gunship: No, Really

A megawatt laser with a four-inch-diameter beam that can cut through metal at a range of nine miles. Science fiction when I was growing up, a Boeing Integrated Defense Systems project today.

• Fox News: "Boeing Testing Another Powerful Airborne Laser"
• Boeing: "Boeing Installs High-Energy Laser on Laser Gunship Aircraft"
• Boeing: "Missile Defense Systems / Airborne Laser Backgrounder"
• GlobalSecurity.org: "Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL)"

Advice for Pilots, Jokes for Everyone

""

I don't know where this list of sayings and advice for pilots came from, but it's funny: a mixture of serious advice and a few slightly-grim jokes. Samples:

• "Every takeoff is optional. Every landing is mandatory."
• "A 'good' landing is one from which you can walk away. A 'great' landing is one after which they can use the plane again."
• "When in doubt, hold on to your altitude. No one has ever collided with the sky."

Boeing's New 747-8: a Fly-Through

"Interior of the new Boeing 747-8," shown on StumbleVideo, is a virtual fly-through of the Boeing airliner It takes about three minutes, and gives a pretty good view of the airplane.

I see that they've re-invented the Pullman car. Not a bad idea, really.

For those who are sensitive to such things, a warning: This video is quite obviously a commercial product, intended to show what a nifty plane Boeing made.