<p>The black box was designed on very old technologies that consume a lot of power, take a lot of room, and have low capacity to store data.</p>
<p>I hope the new generation black box is slimmer, can live longer on battery, and can store not only sound but also video like a cellphone. And there should be multiple back boxes installed on the airplane.</p>
<p>Well, why store the data in a box on the airplane to begin with? Have it all sent back to some remote site, so if the plane is lost we don’t have to scan 150 square miles of the ocean floor.</p>
<p>For the two posts above, it all comes down to money.</p>
<p>This makes the most sense to me but what do I know. It does meet the “simplest explanation is usually the right one” rule.</p>
<p>A Startlingly Simple Theory About the Missing Malaysia Airlines Jet
<a href=“A Startlingly Simple Theory About the Missing Malaysia Airlines Jet | WIRED”>http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/</a></p>
<p>The absolutely simplest explanation is suicide.
<a href=“Missing Malaysia Airlines pilot 'terribly upset' by marriage break-up”>http://www.smh.com.au/world/missing-malaysia-airlines-pilot-terribly-upset-by-marriage-breakup-20140326-zqn4p.html</a>
</p>
<p>It’s not like pilot suicide hasn’t happened before. Look up Egypt Air 990, Silk Air 185, Federal Express 705. In each case the pilot had some personal emotional/financial crisis and decided to commit suicide and make it look like an accident. </p>
<p>OHMom, I don’t know about that theory. As reasonable as it sounds, the guy is making a lot of assumptions. It is likely that one would still have a second to whip off a radio call, especially if you’re going off route and changing altitudes. The typical routine is for the capt to say, “I have the airplane and the radios, you work the problem,” or vice versa. You don’t both work the problem. The guy who is flying, in a serious situation such as a fire, starts descending and heading towards the nearest airport ASAP. The quickest way to get to the nearest airport is to call ATC and ask for a heading. We really don’t keep a running track of all airports behind, to the side and in front of us in our heads, though we might be generally aware of some and have navaids that show us that.</p>
<p>An overheat on the nose gear? There aren’t even brakes on the nose gear. Not putting your mask on for smoke and fire? Smoke in the cockpit, that’s the first thing you do, so you aren’t incapacitated. A fire on the airplane, and still the airplane flying for 7 hours? It’s well known to pilots that you usually only have 20 minutes in the case of a fire, no way could a fire be bad enough to incapacitate the pilots (and everyone onboard, as the flight attendants could get in the cockpit, and there even was a flight engineer onboard), and then allow the airplane to fly for 7 hours. Going to 45,000 ft to fight the fire? No way, you’re getting down and landing ASAP.</p>
<p>Though this sounds like a simple explanation, on further examination, it looks like they would have had to do some stupid things in his theory. And yes, pilots can make huge mistakes when there is confusion and panic. But I don’t think so.</p>
<p>While families of passengers in many countries around the world react with grace and calm, families of Chinese passengers and even Chinese people who have no relatives on flight 370 shouted and demonstrated against the Malaysian government. Obviously, the Chinese government is the mastermind behind those reactions.</p>
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</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-25/what-really-concerns-china-about-flight-370[/url]”>http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-25/what-really-concerns-china-about-flight-370</a></p>
<p>I’m not sure what is most likely. I do think that it seems a great coincidence that, whatever incident occurred, it happened just at the time that the plane was leaving the “control” of one set of traffic controllers and was expected to call in to the next set in another country. If you were planning some incident, that might be an opportune time to maximize the chance of avoiding scrutiny. </p>
<p>Its possible, of course, that a fire became apparent at exactly that time, or that somehow a hijacker appeared just at that minute or two. But only the pilots knew precisely when that transition occurred. The new information about the personal life of the captain makes me lean towards that as a “cause”, although it still leaves a lot of questions unanswered. </p>
<p>The thing that makes the fire explanation most difficult to accept is that, at the time of the last, calm voice communication with the co-pilot, the transponder had already been shut down, and the turn west had already begun. If those were due to an emergency of any type, the emergency happened while they were still communicating with Kuala Lumpur.</p>
<p>Nothing I have read has indicted that it is a fact the plane had already begun the turn west and transponder turned off before last voice communication with ATC in KL. I have seen nothing that indicates the information about the Capts personal life is fact, either. Do you have links for this information showing these things as fact or is it just speculation or info from anonymous sources? TIA . </p>
<p>I am also curious about what emily asks. I know if my transponder shut off and I made a turn off course, ATC would tell me they lost my Mode C and why was I turning off course. They would ntot just ignore it and hand me off to another controller. That is, if we were in radar contact, I’m assuming they were, but I’m not certain.</p>
<p>I think the timeline on those “events” (aircraft turn, transponder off, last transmission) is not clear. There seems to be no “official” timeline to work from. </p>
<p>Does the transponder send a continuous signal which is instantly noted to be missing by air traffic controllers, or does it feed a display at ATC that is “refreshed” at various intervals? If you only really have interval observations, you couldn’t be certain precisely when it went off. </p>
<p>That would be scary if transponders only refreshed in certain intervals, imagine flying 5 miles behind someone in the weather, or in Southern California. I’m sure it’s constantly showing your position and altitude. But if you are on a remote route where you are non radar, where the radar coverage doesn’t extend to, you have to make position reports at certain points, so they know where you are.</p>
<p>This whole search situation… So sad.</p>
<p>“You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.”. Yogi Berra. </p>
<p>“Go there don’t know where.” Russian fairy tale. </p>
<p>I’m glad I’m not in charge of looking for this. This morning’s news is that the “new” target search area is 80% smaller than the previous search area, but it is still the size of Poland. I think they will ultimately find some debris, but it is literally more difficult that a needle in a large haystack. </p>
<p>Last night they were talking that they were still looking for that haystack! I cannot even imagine what the families of the passengers and crew are going through. </p>
<p>What a horrific experience for all concerned. I guess the only thing worse than losing a loved one suddenly is not being absolutely sure that the loved one is lost and not knowing what happened.</p>
<p>Is it plane debris that they are seeing on the satellite images, spread hundreds of km apart? Or is there really that much random garbage floating in the ocean?</p>
<p>* Or is there really that much random garbage floating in the ocean?*</p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p><a href=“Great Pacific garbage patch - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch</a>
<a href=“Indian Ocean garbage patch - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_garbage_patch</a>
<a href=“North Atlantic garbage patch - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_garbage_patch</a></p>
<p>lol, there is a website for EVERYTHING</p>