<p>Lack of cabin pressure has brought the demise of a scheduled commercial flight recently:
<a href=“Helios Airways Flight 522 - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522</a></p>
<p>The crash of Payne Stewart’s private jet is described here:
<a href=“1999 South Dakota Learjet crash - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_South_Dakota_Learjet_crash</a></p>
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<p>Until it runs out of fuel.</p>
<p>I’m curious if lack of cabin cause pressure can cause the plane to go off radar AND the transponder to fail?</p>
<p>The plane was probably not on radar, as too far from land. Communication would be verbal.</p>
<p>Tatum, I posted on Monday that a friend’s son --Navy pilot–was out looking for this plane.</p>
<p>A sudden drop in altitude would be deadly, according to retired controller.</p>
<p>Where is John Galt?</p>
<p>Ignore this link if someone has already posted it! It is constantly updated with the latest news about the plane:</p>
<p><a href=“The Wall Street Journal - Breaking News, Business, Financial & Economic News, World News and Video”>The Wall Street Journal - Breaking News, Business, Financial & Economic News, World News and Video;
<p>Where’s NSA when we really need them?</p>
<p>They might know something but they will not tell. Similarly China might have done something but told a different thing.</p>
<p>Maybe they’re so busy reading our emails and phone calls they missed an enormous plane flying into neverland. I can’t imagine how those families must be feeling have no idea what has happened to their loved ones. This is getting more bizarre by the day, and I now think a whole bunch of people know a whole lot more than they’re letting on.</p>
<p>“Like that golfers private jet a few years ago. Something happened so that the pilot and all the passengers lost consciousness and died, some decompressive event. But the plane kept going until it crashed in the Dakotas.”</p>
<p>That made a deep impression on me, as I used to fly that sort of Learjet that Payne Stewart was in. If I start feeling even slightly hypoxic, I instantly look at the cabin pressure to make sure it isn’t slowly climbing, and I never forget to wear the oxygen mask when required (when the other person leaves the cockpit over 25,000 feet). It’s too hard to forget that accident. </p>
<p>My initial impression of what might of happened to this airplane was an incapacitating event. Of course, as an accident investigation continues, they find that they were often wrong about their initial discoveries.</p>
<p>I find it very possible that this isn’t a strange mystery, nor a hijacking. Purely that they had a decompression or smoke, turned 90 degrees off the airway and started their descent (like they should have), and didn’t have time to contact anyone before they were incapacitated. That the airplane continued on autopilot, and equipment started shutting down, one thing at a time until it eventually ran out of fuel.</p>
<p>bd, do you know how much extra fuel that plane would have for that flight over the amount required to get to Bejing? Probably in a percentage like 10% extra is what I’m looking for if you know.</p>
<p>annoyingdad, I haven’t done international flights for many years, so I’m probably the wrong person to look for specifics on this leg. Don’t know if there are any waivers that they might have been able to have, but in general, here are the rules. You must have enough fuel onboard to:</p>
<p>To fly to and land at the airport to which it is released.</p>
<p>Thereafter, to fly for a period of 10% of the flight time required to fly from the point of release to, and land at, the airport to which it was released.</p>
<p>Thereafter, to fly to and land at the most distant alternate airport specified in the Release if an alternate is required.</p>
<p>Thereafter, to fly for 30 minutes at holding speed at 1500 FT above the alternate airport (or the destination airport if no alternate is required) under standard temperature conditions."</p>
<p>So yeah, to sum it up, I’m guessing that 10% extra, plus holding fuel of 30 min, plus alternate fuel, plus any fuel planned for delays or anti-ice, or aircraft specific inoperative parts, would be a good guess. Certainly their controllers would know exactly how much fuel was on that flight when it blocked out.</p>
<p>I read this morning (don’t recall where) that the plane had fuel sufficient to go another 2,500 miles from their last point of contact. Needle in a haystack indeed!</p>
<p>G-d bless them if they were hijacked and have a chance of still being alive somewhere, but it seems unlikely.</p>
<p>busdriver - I remember the Payne Stewart accident too. If flight 370 was depressurized then there are some differences in these 2 cases. Stewart’s wife was able to call him although he could not answer. The Lear jet was seen by the USAF jets for a long time. There was rumor that the USAF jets could shoot the Lear jet down to prevent further accidents on the ground if it continued to fly.</p>
<p>Definitely some differences. A million differences. But it’s possible the similarity is the malfunction of a depressurization. Obviously just speculation. I wonder how many people tried to call their loved ones on the flight while it was aloft? What kind of cell service do you get out there over the ocean? It certainly took some time before people even realized there was a problem, and probably most people had their cell phones off. I doubt anyone could have gotten through at that altitude, that part of the world anyways, so I doubt cell phone pings are going to be any help at all.</p>
<p>I wonder military radars of Thailand, India, China could have detected the jet.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t there at least be a visual of the plane? If other pilots flying their flight path saw an unexpected plane wouldn’t they radio in? Would it be something that other pilots would be aware of around them? Wouldn’t some towers at other airports see it on the radar?</p>
<p>^For reasons like those you stated, an expert I watched on TV last night basically said it is implausible that the fate of this jet can be anything other than crashed to the bottom of the sea.</p>
<p>“Wouldn’t there at least be a visual of the plane? If other pilots flying their flight path saw an unexpected plane wouldn’t they radio in? Would it be something that other pilots would be aware of around them? Wouldn’t some towers at other airports see it on the radar?”</p>
<p>This was the middle of the night, was it not? Over the ocean, huge airspace, tiny dots of light. Someone wouldn’t notice it as unusual or even be able to see the airplane clearly most of the time, especially at night. Now, landing at a tiny airport where you never see a 777, sure, people would notice. And an airport that had tower controllers would notice. But most likely this airplane crashed in the ocean, and very unlikely it was witnessed by anyone…as you’d think they would have spoken up by now.</p>
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<p><a href=“http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_MALAYSIA_PLANE?SITE=MYPSP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-03-14-23-57-32”>http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_MALAYSIA_PLANE?SITE=MYPSP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-03-14-23-57-32</a></p>
<p>I think those investigators have their heads up their butts and cannot possibly make such a determination at this point! There will (hopefully) be far more information forthcoming. Is it possible that the jet was hijacked, sure. More likely by a cockpit crewmember. But they can’t possibly know, when a piece of equipment fails, if it was turned off intentionally (or unintentionally), or if it was destroyed by fire or another malfunction. Climbing up to 45,000 feet, and descending to 23,000 feet, then climbing back up again is more likely an indication of crew incapacitation as opposed to a hijacking. Somebody who knew what they were doing would not do that, unless they were fighting for control of the aircraft. Anything is possible, but it is really unlikely that the airplane was hijacked and flown to some remote location. I wish that was true, but it is really unlikely. So much more will come out, and they will end up realizing that much of what they are guessing now is incorrect. That’s always what happens.</p>