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A plane can fly without communications operations until it runs out of fuel. The communications systems don't provide the means for the plane to fly, only in some manner where to fly.
The 777 could have experienced a complete communications system failure and still have flown until it's fuel was exhausted.
Hold on folks. Just heard a report that the satellite image may be that of a missing sailing yacht that had seven people on board which hasn't been seen or heard from since it communicated it was heading into a bad storm after it left northern Australia last summer. So, in about a year that yacht could have easily drifted it's way to the area where this image was spotted. Seems to fit the size too.
A plane can fly without communications operations until it runs out of fuel. The communications systems don't provide the means for the plane to fly, only in some manner where to fly.
The 777 could have experienced a complete communications system failure and still have flown until it's fuel was exhausted.
Very true, but a common cause to the loss of all comms - such as a fire - would likely knock out other systems that do affect flight.
Very true, but a common cause to the loss of all comms - such as a fire - would likely knock out other systems that do affect flight.
Perhaps but that wouldn't mean the plane crashes immediately. It could fly on for quite a while and if the cabin filled with smoke, the pilot could have entered a new heading and flight control path which was accepted and executed before all went dead. The plane would then be on a different heading and continue to fly until fuel ran out. It wouldn't take that long for the heading to change.
I am not certain but the 777 probably would not turn over and dive into the ocean because it's major systems failed, there would be no inputs to the control. Rather, the last inputs would remain and if it were flying level or in a controlled descent from high altitude, it could be very far from where the incident occurred before it crashed.
Of course, smoke filling a cabin probably leaves enough time for an emergency communication but if that was the system first affected...
All speculation of course, until they find the plane.
I have no way of confirming this but I copied this from another site and thought it was interesting. A site that is full of some pretty mechanical people. If it is indeed true, the telemetry from the engines are the key to finding out what happened and where the plane is. I only copied the part of the discussion about the engines. It was supposedly written by a pilot.
Now to Malaysia. There are so many communication systems on the airplane. 3 VHF radios. 2 SatCom systems. 2 HF radio systems. Plus Transpoders and active, ‘real time’ monitoring through CPDLC (Controller to Pilot Data Link Clearance) and ADS B(Air Data Service) through the SatCom systems and ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System) thru the VHF, HF and SatCom systems. The air traffic controllers can tell where we are, speed, altitude, etc as well as what our computers and flight guidance system has set into our control panels. Big Brother for sure! However, most of these things can be turned off.
But, there are a few systems that can’t be turned off and one, as reported by the WSJ, is the engine monitoring systems (not sure what the acronym for that is, but I’m sure there is one….it’s aviation…there has to be an acronym!). The Malaysia airplane, like our 777-200’s, use Rolls Royce Trent Engines (as a piece of trivia….Rolls Royce names their motors after rivers….because they always keep on running!) Rolls Royce leases these motors to us and they monitor them all the time they are running. In fact, a few years back, one of our 777’s developed a slow oil leak due and partial equipment failure. It wasn’t bad enough to set off the airplane’s alerting system, but RR was looking at it on their computers. They are in England, they contact our dispatch in Texas, Dispatch sends a message to the crew via SatCom in the North Pacific, telling them that RR wants them to closely monitor oil pressure and temp on the left engine. Also, during the descent, don’t retard the throttle to idle…keep it at or above a certain rpm. Additionally, they wanted the crew to turn on the engine ‘anti ice’ system as the heats some of the engine components.
The crew did all of that and landed uneventfully, but after landing and during the taxi in, the left engine shut itself down using it’s redundant, computerized operating system that has a logic tree that will not allow it to be shut down if the airplane is in the air…only on the ground. Pretty good tech. Anyway, the point was, that RR monitors those engines 100% of the time they are operating. The WSJ reported that RR indicated the engines on the Malaysia 777 were running normally for 4 to 5 hours after the reported disappearance. Malaysia denies this. We shall see.
IF the debris is the plane, then there had to have been two turns executed away from the original flight path:
(1) A turn west, which was programmed into the autopilot BEFORE the "good night" message. This took the plane into the Bay of Bengal, and north of Indonesia
(2) A turn south, from the Bay of Bengal to where the debris was found.
Those two turns are inconsistent with a fire in the cockpit or any other malfunction. They were human caused. You can argue that turn #1 may have been to go to the nearest airport (at Langkawi) due a problem, but then why continue westward past the airport and make a 2nd turn that goes south towards open ocean?
I wonder if there are any submarines in the area helping in this search? They can 'see at night' and they probably have killer sonar capabilities. They have to know what's around them.
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