How do you lose a 777?

[engineergurl]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/09/malaysia-airlines-freescale-idUSL2N0M602O20140309

(Reuters) - Twenty employees of U.S. chipmaker Freescale Semiconductor were passengers on a Malaysia Airlines flight presumed to have crashed off the Vietnamese coast, according to a company statement on Saturday.

That's a misleading quote. The company is a U.S. company, the employee's were not U.S. citizens.

I don't mind that we are helpful, but I want to know how we are paying to be helpful...

 

[Capt Worley PE]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/09/malaysia-airlines-freescale-idUSL2N0M602O20140309

(Reuters) - Twenty employees of U.S. chipmaker Freescale Semiconductor were passengers on a Malaysia Airlines flight presumed to have crashed off the Vietnamese coast, according to a company statement on Saturday.

That's a misleading quote. The company is a U.S. company, the employee's were not U.S. citizens.

It does explain that in the article. 12 Malasian, 8 Chines, IIRC.

 

[engineergurl]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/09/malaysia-airlines-freescale-idUSL2N0M602O20140309

(Reuters) - Twenty employees of U.S. chipmaker Freescale Semiconductor were passengers on a Malaysia Airlines flight presumed to have crashed off the Vietnamese coast, according to a company statement on Saturday.

That's a misleading quote. The company is a U.S. company, the employee's were not U.S. citizens.

It does explain that in the article. 12 Malasian, 8 Chines, IIRC.

It does, that's why I just said it was a misleading quote...

 

[Dexman PE PMP]

The article I saw was obviously outdated. Here's a good summary of the facts so far:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/malaysia-airline-disappearance-now/story?id=22847455

• Timeline of Events:
• 12:41 a.m. (Malaysia): Flight MH370 departs Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia headed for Beijing, China.
• 12:43 a.m First time the flight shows up on radar
• 1:20 a.m. Air traffic control and radar lose contact. The last signal from the flight showed the plane at 35,000 feet. It went off the radar about 140 miles off the coast of Vietnam.

• The Investigation
• Hijack: Investigators are "not discounting" the possibility of a hijack, but there is no evidence pointing to it.
• Separatist Group Claiming Responsibility: A Chinese media personality received an open letter allegedly from a group of Chinese separatists called the "Chinese Martyr Brigade" that claimed responsibility for the incident. The letter said it was revenge for Malaysia persecuting them and for China suppressing the Uigurs. The Uigars are an ethnic minority in China. Last week, an extremist Uigur group allegedly perpetrated a knife attack in a Chinese train station that left 29 dead and more than 100 injured.
• Plane May Have Turned Back: A radar recording indicates that the plane may have turned back toward Malaysia after taking off, but the pilots made no such indication on the radio.
• Oil Slicks Tested: Oil slicks spotted off the Vietnam coast were thought to be signs of the downed plane, but tests have come back showing they had nothing to do with the aircraft and were not related to the disappearance. Also, a piece of debris thought to be from the plane also proved to be unrelated.

• Fake Passports Used By Two Passengers
• Investigators discovered that two passengers used stolen passports, one from Austria and one from Italy, to board the flight.
• Interpol criticized Malaysia for not checking the men's passports against the international database of stolen passports, where they would have seen that the passports had been reported stolen in 2012 and 2013. Both were stolen in Thailand.
• The two individuals who used the stolen passports were identified on CCTV footage and described by a Malaysian official as "not Asian-looking."

• The Search for Flight #MH370
• Nine countries are now searching for the plane or any sign of it: Vietnam, China, Singapore, Indonesia, USA , Thailand, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines. The U.S. Navy has sent the 7th Fleet's USS Pinckney, carrying two search and rescue helicopters and a maritime surveillance aircraft.
• 40 ships and 34 aircraft are involved in searching.
• The search for evidence of the flight, including any debris or wreckage, was expanded today and now spans 100 nautical miles around the west coast of Malaysia.
• The plane was a Boeing 777-200 with a clean flight history; Malaysia Airlines has a good safety record, according to the Flight Safety Foundation.

• The Passengers
• 239 people were on board the flight, made up of 227 passengers (including one infant and one toddler) and 12 crew members.
• Three Americans, including two children, are among the missing. Philip Wood, a 50-year-old IBM executive, had just come from Texas where he was visiting family on his way to Beijing.
• A total of 14 different nationalities, though 152 passengers were Chinese.
• Twenty passengers on the plane worked for the Austin, Texas, company Freescale Semiconductor. Another passenger, Chng Mei Ling, worked as an engineer for the Pennsylvania company Flexsys America LP.
• Pilot Zahari Ahmad Shah, 53, was a veteran pilot who joined Malaysia Airlines in 1981 and had over 18,000 flying hours.

 

[csb]

It's also a Boeing airplane, so this part of the NTSB qualifies:

Furthermore, in accordance with the provisions of international treaties, NTSB supplies investigators to serve as U.S. accredited representatives for aviation accidents overseas involving U.S-registered aircraft, or involving aircraft or major components of U.S. manufacture.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/?&dbname=cp112&sid=cp112MX0Er&refer&r_n=sr083.112&item&&&sel=TOC_527737&

I'm also going out on a limb by saying that the Naval folks involved are probably out on a cruise that doesn't involve anything mission-critical directly...just holding tight. We're paying for a couple thousand people to be out in the ocean anyway, so why not have them help look?

 

[Dleg]

Why all the questioning about why is the US helping and how are we paying for it? When a ship issues a distress call at sea, ALL nearby ships must respond, regardless of nationality. It's common sense and a duty all humans have to each other. Does this even cost anything more than the usual US Naval operations, cruising around "maintaining a presence"?

 

[engineergurl]

I have been questioning all government spending lately. That's all.

 

[DVINNY]

I always question any government spending, but in cases like this, my thoughts are pretty much just like Dleg just stated.

We have the resources, & 'usually' try to do the right thing

 

[engineergurl]

I think it was more because at first no one else was assisting. The US and one other place had sent people and I was more like wth China isn't helping? That made me wonder what they weren't telling everyone else.

 

[engineergurl]

And I realize that Isound like a brat, but China has enough funding that they can put in just as much effort as we can. Kind of like what goes through my head when wealthy people go get a free meal but turn a deaf ear on when donations are requested, I seriously question my giving freely.

 

[NJmike PE]

^brat, lol

 

[Capt Worley PE]

I think it was more because at first no one else was assisting. The US and one other place had sent people and I was more like wth China isn't helping? That made me wonder what they weren't telling everyone else.

No, there have been a lot of countries in the area helping out with the search. US media is just so p!ss poor that you don't hear about any one else assisting.(because, OMG, the Bachelor finale is on!).

 

[Capt Worley PE]

When a ship issues a distress call at sea, ALL nearby ships must respond, regardless of nationality. It's common sense and a duty all humans have to each other. Does this even cost anything more than the usual US Naval operations, cruising around "maintaining a presence"?

This.

Even in the bad old days of the cold war, the American's and Soviets offered assistance to one another in maritime emergencies (it was usually declined, but still).

 

[Weavs33]

I think it was more because at first no one else was assisting. The US and one other place had sent people and I was more like wth China isn't helping? That made me wonder what they weren't telling everyone else.

No, there have been a lot of countries in the area helping out with the search. US media is just so p!ss poor that you don't hear about any one else assisting.(because, OMG, the Bachelor finale is on!).

Who won??

 

[mudpuppy]

I think it was more because at first no one else was assisting. The US and one other place had sent people and I was more like wth China isn't helping? That made me wonder what they weren't telling everyone else.

I think there's a element of strategy going on. I mean, if someone is going around making large airliners disappear we probably want to get as much intelligence on that as we can, to make sure they don't try to use the same tactics against us. What better way to get inside info than to "assist?"

 

[Capt Worley PE]

I almost wonder if someone did a test shot on a focused EMP device. 777 is all electric, isn't it?

Still wouldn't explain the lack of debris, though. THAT'S what throws me.

 

[Road Guy]

What if pilot made a controlled landing ( like the one on the Hudson River ) and then it just sang with little debris? Versus crashing into the ocean and then breaking apart?

 

[Flyer_PE]

^Had that happened, there would have been people in life rafts with locator beacons.

 

[Road Guy]

Well it's not like it's Delta Airlines where they have staff actually practice those type of emergencies it's possible to think that It landed the door could open and sink to the bottom?

 

[Capt Worley PE]

What if pilot made a controlled landing ( like the one on the Hudson River ) and then it just sang with little debris? Versus crashing into the ocean and then breaking apart?

I'm not sure the 777 can make to bottom watertight like the Airbus could. It'd be hard to keep the fuselage intact with water jetting in at 100+ mph.

There'd still be a slick from fuel leaks, even if it did manage to somehow sink without leaving debris.