TravelBanter - View Single Post - Flight MH370: Malaysian radar, passenger phone contact, high-altitudehypoxia

**Home^Guy**

wrote:

I guess the thinking is that a terrorist hijacking, with the
intent on flying a plane into a landmark, requires VFR
conditions - daylight.

That is why they suspect the flight crew or another real pilot

No, that wasn't my point.

My point is that in terms of the military watching for radar signals
24/7 from planes not transmitting ATC beacons, it's obvious that the
Malasian military wasn't doing that, because the thinking is that anyone
trying to hijack a plane obviously wants to fly the plane into a
landmark, and they can really only do that with the aid of daylight.

If the goal was not to fly the plane into a landmark, but just fly and
crash it anywhere in a suicide mission, night or day, it doesn't have to
be a member of the crew - or anyone with flying experience.

I would bet a phone being able to send a text message if it was
10 miles from a tower, 20k feet in the air, with the phone held
against a window. Possibly 20 miles.

The excursion to 20,000 feet many miles off the coast of Sumatra
over the indian ocean.

If you say so. I'm not aware of all the different versions of the known
flight path of this plane.

You also have the problem that cell tower antennas are optimized
toward the ground, not up in the air.

Near the tower, yes. But the radiation pattern is likely to be dounut
shaped, which means there will be some vertical spread of the signal at
some distance from the tower.

And again I wonder what the rational is for putting a switch in
the cockpit that can PREVENT the masks from dropping. I don't
think a lot of people knew that.

You didn't respond to that point.

I am not sure the masks didn't drop

That's not the point. Why would designers give the pilots the ability
to prevent them from dropping?

and a person without oxygen would not be kicking that door long
at 45,000 feet

I'm not questioning that. I'm questioning why the designers would give
pilots the ability to PREVENT masks from dropping.

At 45,000, there really isn't any.

The plane would be stalling at 45k feet. I've heard some pilots say
that anything over 40k feet is a crapshoot in terms of being able to
keep a plane like that flying.

The oxygen generators behind those masks are only meant for a
few minutes,

The several sources I've read indicate 15 minutes.

And there should be an emergency radio in the tail of the plane
that can't be turned off from the cockpit.

No comment about that either eh?

I speculated previously that an attempt at a controlled landing
on water (regardless how "futile") would probably result in a
smaller, less obvious debris field.

Sully is the rare exception to the normal outcome of a "ditch" in
the water. He was on a slick calm river. A 3 foot rolling sea
would send that plane pitch poling and break it apart.

I'm not saying that it would have been possible to land that 777 on
water just as intact as Sully did. In fact I would say it would be 99%
impossible.

I'm saying that just attempting to do so, to put as little destructive
force on the plane as possible, would or could result in a smaller
debris field, even in the likely event the plane broke up into large
pieces.

I'm saying that if the pilot was intent on suicide, with a side order of
mystery, that he WOULD attempt a soft landing on water, instead of
barreling in nose-first at mach-1.