Summaries

rcair1 (thread #16, reply 144)
There have been reports from Rolls Royce that the accident a/c sent 2 engine status messages - at take off and 20 minutes later. They were unremarkable. So ACARS was operating before the LOS event.

I believe that means that what is being said is the ACARS did not transmit anything remarkable.

Sanity check. I'm going to try to list what we know, not what we think - we being the public. And sadly it is very short.

- The ship took off normally and headed on course to Beijing - The last comms were a normal handoff from Malaysia to Vietnam control. - It was a normal 'good night' on the Malaysian side, but Vietnam was not contacted. - The aircraft dropped off secondary radar with no communication from the cockpit. - There is some reports of a descent and turn - based on primary radar. - But there is confusion about the veracity of that. - There is some confusion (in the press) about if the descent was 3000ft or to 3000ft - There was a primary radar return tracked west over the Malacca straits. - Since it is primarily - a reflection - we do not know that it is the accident a/c. - We do not know if it was a track (multiple returns) or a few points returns. - We have no ELT signal detected.

Based on this information - authorities are searching 2 areas - near the planned route and in the Malacca straight. - Frankly - this is quite reasonable. You search where you have evidence the a/c may be.

There are lots of conspiracy theories out there - from the Malaysian government hiding something to pilot suicide, to hijacking to whatever. - We have no data to support any of them. - The breadth of the countries searching alone makes me discount many of the 'government is hiding it' aspects - It is likely there are covert (secret) resources in the area that are trying to provide the info without revealing themselves.

We have lots of complaints about incompetence. - I've been in and in command of large emergencies and been the one responsible to communicate to large groups. - Even in the best situations, with cooperating agencies - it is easy to portray incompetence when what is really going on is hard work that is not providing the desired result.

There are lots of people talking about "mobile phones". - We know that if any mobile phones were connected to the tower - we would have a location and would search there. - We don't have any reports or evidence of that - so I conclude that it is not viable to consider.

We have had a lot of "false" sightings - This is common and we need to investigate the credible ones. Most will be false.

In summary We KNOW 3 things. - The a/c disappeared from secondary radar and stopped communicating. We do not know why or what happened to it. - There is some evidence that it traveled west. But that evidence is not conclusive or sure. - We have not found it despite multiple governmental agencies from multiple countries searching hard.

That is all.

"New Sanity Check" by rcair1 (thread #21, reply #31)
New Sanity Check.

A slight update to the sanity check I did in thread 16. Been trying to do this for 12 hrs - I can't keep up with the rumors, The facts have not changed much. Stuff that has changed is marked with * and  italic 

I'm going to try to list what we know, not what we think - we being the public. And sadly it is very short.

- The ship took off normally and headed on course to Beijing - The last comms were a normal handoff from Malaysia to Vietnam control. - It was a normal 'good night' on the Malaysian side, but Vietnam was not contacted. - The aircraft dropped off secondary radar with no communication from the cockpit. - There are some reports of a descent and turn - based on primary radar. - But there is confusion about the veracity of that. - There is some confusion (in the press) about if the descent was 3000ft or to 3000ft * Update: I think we have concluded it was descent by 3000ft, the a/c remained at or near 29,500 feet. - There was a primary radar return tracked west over the Malacca straits. - Since it is primarily - a reflection - we do not know that it is the accident a/c. - We do not know if it was a track (multiple returns) or a few points returns. - We have no ELT signal detected.

''* Update:
 * ACARS: 2 ACARS messages were sent to Rolls Royce - both before the LOS (loss of signal) event. None after that.

* This IS Significant,  if it is true because that means the a/c was in flight and that comms were NOT disable.
 * SATCOM Pings: There are (unconfirmed?) reports that the a/c SATCOM continued to send network interrogations (pings) for some hours after the LOS.
 * These pings are simply short signals from the a/c to the satellites that are a sort of "I'm here" signal. No data was sent.
 * However, these pings provide no location, direction or any other kind of info - simply a 'ping' sent to the satellite.
 * There is confusion about these pings being primary radar returns - that is not correct - they are communication signals.

Airworthiness Directive
 * The airworthiness directive about the SATCOM antenna does not apply to this ship.
 * The ship DOES have SATCOM - but uses a different antenna''

Based on this information - authorities are searching 2 areas - near the planned route and in the Malacca straight. ''* In addition - there may be some extension to the Indian Ocean. - Frankly - this is quite reasonable. You search where you have evidence the a/c may be.
 * This makes sense if the primary radar returns in the Malacca Straight were MH370 and it was heading west at altitude.
 * The fact that we have found nothing in the most likely areas drives expansion based on either new data or less reliable data.''

There are lots of conspiracy theories out there - from the Malaysian government hiding something to pilot suicide, to hijacking to whatever. - We have no data to support any of them. - The breadth of the countries searching alone makes me discount many of the 'government is hiding it' aspects - It is likely there are covert (secret) resources in the area that are trying to provide the info without revealing themselves.

'''We have lots of complaints about incompetence. ''' - I've been in and in command of large emergencies and been the one responsible to communicate to large groups. - Even in the best situations, with cooperating agencies - it is easy to portray incompetence when what is really going on is hard work that is not providing the desired result. * Complaints continue and will despite what any authority does till something happens.

Mobile phones - We know that if any mobile phones were connected to the tower - we would have a location and would search there. - We don't have any reports or evidence of that - so I conclude that it is not viable to consider.

We have had a lot of "false" sightings - This is common and we need to investigate the credible ones. Most will be false. - The Chinese Satellite data has not resulted in any findings.

-- In summary We KNOW 4 things. - The a/c disappeared from secondary radar and stopped communicating. We do not know why or what happened to it. - There is some evidence that it traveled west. But that evidence is not conclusive or sure. - We have not found it despite multiple governmental agencies from multiple countries searching hard. * We have a better idea were it is NOT

That is all. (Perhaps somebody can do an Insanity Check - all the wild theories have been discussed, proven or not).