Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Earth

10 Years Later: Malaysia To Resume Hunt For Flight MH370 (reuters.com) 64

Posted by BeauHD from the lost-and-found dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Malaysia has agreed to resume the search for the wreckage of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, its transport minister said on Friday, more than 10 years after it disappeared in one of the world's greatest aviation mysteries. Flight MH370, a Boeing 777 carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014.

[...] MH370's last transmission was about 40 minutes after it took off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing. The pilots signed off as the plane entered Vietnamese air space over the Gulf of Thailand and soon after its transponder was turned off. "Our responsibility and obligation and commitment is to the next of kin," Transport Minister Anthony Loke told a press conference. "We hope this time will be positive, that the wreckage will be found and give closure to the families."

Further reading: Could Sea Explosions Finally Locate the 2014 Crash Site of Flight MH370?

10 Years Later: Malaysia To Resume Hunt For Flight MH370 More | Reply

10 Years Later: Malaysia To Resume Hunt For Flight MH370

Comments Filter:

  • Suggestions (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rubinhood ( 977039 ) on Friday December 20, 2024 @11:05PM (#65030065)

    Can they maybe start by explaining why the "murder/suicide by pilot" theory was so quickly ruled out earlier, despite pretty consistent signs:
    - pilot flew that exact route over the Indian Ocean on his simulator a month earlier
    - tracking info was most likely turned off manually
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370#Murder/suicide_by_pilot

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Narcocide ( 102829 )

      The pilot had been coordinating with aliens to help them abduct all the passengers. He flew the plane through a portal and the wing tip got sheared off.

    • It was the pilot.

    • I don't see how that helps find the airplane, though.

    • Because the evidence for the murder suicide doesn't make sense in the context of murder suicide. If you wanted to murder suicide you could do it literally at any time. No need to turn off any tracking, no need to pre plan a flight route. Just knock out the copilot, and nosedive the plane into the ground.

      • Well, yeah, but then you wouldn't have people talking about you a decade later. Some twisted pursuit of a legacy seems like a plausible explanation.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by kenh ( 9056 )

          Why would a suicide pilot care about hiding the wreckage? He didn't care about the 238 other souls he killed, why worry about leaving a mess/wreckage in plain sight?

        • Sure we would be. It is the murder-suicide which has claimed the largest number of fatalities short of the twin tower planes technically also fitting into this category (since they were flown by terrorists).

          The legacy is assured one way or another. In fact the legacy would be more assured if he left a message for a data recorder and ploughed the plane into a mountain or a building. It doesn't make sense to turn this into a disappearing act.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        Because the evidence for the murder suicide doesn't make sense in the context of murder suicide. If you wanted to murder suicide you could do it literally at any time. No need to turn off any tracking, no need to pre plan a flight route. Just knock out the copilot, and nosedive the plane into the ground.

        Not if you want the plane to be easily found. The fact that we haven't found it makes it murder-suicide but without any details we have nothing but speculation.

        There have been plenty of pilot suicides over t

    • Can they maybe start by explaining why the "murder/suicide by pilot" theory was so quickly ruled out earlier, despite pretty consistent signs: - pilot flew that exact route over the Indian Ocean on his simulator a month earlier - tracking info was most likely turned off manually en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370#Murder/suicide_by_pilot

      Short answer: No.

      Longer answer: There is huge resistance in Muslim majority countries to admit to pilot suicide. EgyptAir Flight 990 is another example of this. The NTSB report says basically the relief first office deliberately took actions with his controls that made the plane go nose down, without offering a theory on why he did this. As far as I know, to this day EgyptAir insists that the crash wasn't deliberate. There is also probably some fear that the airline might be damaged financiall

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      Can they maybe start by explaining why the "murder/suicide by pilot" theory was so quickly ruled out earlier, despite pretty consistent signs:
      - pilot flew that exact route over the Indian Ocean on his simulator a month earlier
      - tracking info was most likely turned off manually
      en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370#Murder/suicide_by_pilot

      What does any of that have to do with finding the wreckage? You are asking "Who?" and "Why?" questions, they are asking "Where?" Questions...

      • If they fudged the first investigation, shouldn't that fudging factor be exposed and removed, before a second one makes sense?

  • I think that they made a TV series about this. It was called "Lost." Unfortunately, the ending was really pathetic. Just remember 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42! But I think they got it wrong because 4815162341 is the 734,468,718th position of pi.

  • It will never be found (Score:5, Insightful)

    by denelson83 ( 841254 ) on Saturday December 21, 2024 @12:56AM (#65030197)

    The plane is in several million pieces scattered over several thousand square kilometres of potentially mountainous ocean floor, like what happened with SwissAir Flight 111, only in much deeper water.

    • Re:It will never be found (Score:4, Informative)

      by cmdahler ( 1428601 ) on Saturday December 21, 2024 @06:47AM (#65030477)

      The plane is in several million pieces scattered over several thousand square kilometres of potentially mountainous ocean floor, like what happened with SwissAir Flight 111, only in much deeper water.

      That doesn't mean significant pieces of the airplane aren't still intact. For example, the landing gear and the engines are the heaviest and most structurally dense part of any airplane, and those are almost certainly still intact units. Further, since a few fairly good-sized pieces have already been recovered from washing ashore in a few places, it's likely the airplane hit the water at a somewhat shallow angle, which would probably mean there are large-ish sections of the fuselage that remained mostly intact. Given the challenging nature of that area of the Indian ocean floor, they'd have to be practically right on top of the debris field to find anything, but if they do get lucky, I imagine there are good-sized pieces to be found.

      • it's likely the airplane hit the water at a somewhat shallow angle, which would probably mean there are large-ish sections of the fuselage that remained mostly intact.

        That makes it harder to predict where they'd land - as the various air spaces in the wing either filled or collapsed, the buoyancy would change. Most of the tanks would have been empty (just from the minimum distance flown, from the engine pings), so little buoyancy from the kerosene. But the wings aren't the meaningful target. It's the FDR a

    • like what happened with SwissAir Flight 111, only in much deeper water.

      Was that the [Brazil to European capital] flight that disappeared mid-Atlantic? (I don't fly often these days so don't pay much attention to the details.)

      IIRC, the crash point of that one was essentially chosen by the positioning of weather systems, which the pilots were interpreted as (perfectly reasonably) steering around, before [whatever] went wrong and the plane fell out of the sky. So, essentially, the crash site and debris field

  • How is finding pieces of the wreckage going to provide any kind of closure ?

    Does anyone seriously believe some passengers survived ? Some sort of Cast away situation ?

    Oh, and since i mentioned that movie, obligatory fuck to FedEx.
    No package takes them less than 10 days to deliver . I have one take over a month through 14 states, some twice.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jaa101 ( 627731 )

      If they miraculously recover the cockpit voice recorder and/or flight data recorder, there could be many more clues. After that long they'll need another miracle to access any of the data.

      • The most likely cause was the pilot commiting suicide.
        To do that, he would have had to disable the copilot or get him out of the cockpit.
        The wreckage could contain clues showing that he did that.

        • Unless they find a skeleton (and there is zero chance of finding anything more) with blunt force trauma inside an intact cockpit, there will be no such evidence. Even in the extremely remote possibility there was no damage to the cockpit, it would not tell you anything if the copilot died from blood loss or lack of oxygen.

          Hoping for a very unlikely possibility on top of the very, very, very, very unlikely event this search turns up the plane does not make this a more sensical endeavor.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

        Given that pieces of the airplane such as flaperon had been recovered whole, it's pretty likely that the black boxes survived the impact intact. They're supposed to be highly water-resistant. The ones from Air France Flight 447 survived 2 years and all data was recovered.

    • People do find closure in finally knowing what happened, and of knowing where they loved ones rest. or, if you already know where they are, seeing the body one last time. You can find such things in True Crime shows. Otherwise my anecdote:

      In 1968 a French sub-marine disappeared in the Mediterranean, and searches were unsuccessful. In 2018 (50 years later), the families were still petitioning the government to launch new searches. With modern means the wreckage was found, it allowed the Navy to host formal c

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by madbrain ( 11432 )

        I agree that knowing if it was a pilot suicide or terrorist attack would be helpful. The former still seems more likely, given what's been made public about the pilot.
        How much of the bodies are going to be left after 10 years ? Maybe some bones, at best.

        Thank you for the reference to the Minerve French submarine. I had not heard about it. I read the Wikipedia page concerning it. That was very interesting. I believe the area to be searched was far smaller than for flight MH370, perhaps making the operation m

        • It still blows my mind that these civilian planes allow all form of communications and other location sensors to be disabled by the pilot. I can see why the pilot legitimately could want to stop relying on them for flying the plane if they are faulty or providing bogus data. Regardless, the plane should remain trackable at all times while there is power to the comms systems. I believe MH370 wreckage might have been found if this was the case.

          The pilot needs control over the plane when there are problems. This includes being able to shut off any and all electrical equipment connected to the aircraft's electrical system. The comms do occasionally cause problems, and need to be power cycled at the least. If it starts drawing enough current to start an electrical fire, then the pilot absolutely needs to turn it off. And there just isn't an electronic comm system in existence capable of transmitting to a satellite that has zero risk of doing this. A

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by madbrain ( 11432 )

            I'm not saying the pilot doesn't need to have some control. But we have GPS chips in our smartphones in our pockets most of the time, and in the majority of cars as well. While location services can be turned off on a phone, I don't think it's that easy on a car. I am skeptical about the fire argument risk for having onboard GPS. Disconnecting it from all other systems if it's causing issues, sure. Maybe have it run on battery for up to 24 hours, like a phone.

            And I'm absolutely not saying anything could hav

            • GPS data isn't transmitted, it's received, it takes almost no power to do so. If it's one of the automobile manufacturers' who track your location, that ability relies on a cell tower within range (25 miles~ish, maximum, usually less than 3). There are no cell towers in the Indian Ocean. You need a much more powerful transmitter to send data to a satellite.

              You are under the impression that this idea hasn't been attempted. This is not a novel idea, there are reasons it isn't done. You are free to try to bui

      • the government has obligation of good stewardship of their citizen and of aviation safety. "most probably" a pilot suicide isn't sufficient;

        They also have a significant factor of "duty of care" to the mariners who will be working on deck to put the search equipment into and out of the water. Deck operations, particularly on an open-stern deck, are dangerous, on a level from fingers to lives.

        The people promoting this new search, and companies considering the tender, need to think there is a reasonable chan

    • How is finding pieces of the wreckage going to provide any kind of closure ?

      I don't really care, but...

      The more we work on this, the more we understand ocean currents, aircraft wreckage distribution, and signals interpretation. All of that could be useful in future aviation incidents, and in some ways preventing them. That's the technical answer.

      People who have lost loved-ones unexpectedly tend to seek as much understanding of the circumstances of their loss as possible. Finding out it was/wasn't the pilot helps resolve the emotional fence-sitting of "who should I blame?" F

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      No package takes them less than 10 days to deliver .

      You claim it takes ten days or more for fedex to deliver ANY package? I've sent packages between TX and SC for $9.75 that arrived in two business days. Perhaps your issues are not as common as you believe?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by madbrain ( 11432 )

        I'm not saying it's common. But it's systematic where I live. Nothing gets here sooner than that. I just told a merchant to recall and refund an order placed on black Friday. It was picked up by Fedex on December 2. Tracking showed had been stuck 40 miles from my home since December 10. Zero update after that. Unfortunately, the merchant did not offer a choice of shipping carrier, nor did I know they were going to use Fedex until after I received the tracking number. I just won't order from them again becau

  • Will make great show no doubt.

  • They weren't really committed to finding it the first time, I doubt their commitment is actually any better this time around.

  • You're all looking for his name in the comments... https://x.com/JustXAshton/stat... [x.com]

Slashdot Top Deals

Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue. - Seneca

Close