Malaysian 370 - Søket fortsetter - Curt Lewis

Search for Malaysian airliner: How far can a jet fly on fumes? Technicians work aboard the Fugro Equator, a ship searching for the remains of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. (DAVID DARE PARKER/NYT) The failure to find any wreckage in the area raises the possibility that the plane began descending earlier, or perhaps changed course in an attempt at an emergency landing at sea. PERTH, Australia - The search for Malaysia Airlines' missing Flight MH370 on the floor of the southern Indian Ocean is nearing an end with no sign of the plane in the area investigators had concluded it most likely went down, prompting a last-ditch reassessment of assumptions used to calculate its final descent and draw the search zone. At issue are estimates of how far the plane may have traveled after it ran out of fuel, notably whether it followed a tight or broad spiral down as it fell or glided toward the ocean, officials said. "We're really doing further work to test our assumption about the end of flight, which defines our search area," said Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. "It's really testing to make sure we haven't missed anything, and that our assumptions remain valid." The failure to find any wreckage in the area also raises the possibility that the plane began descending earlier, or perhaps changed course in an attempt at an emergency landing at sea, though investigators have discounted these outcomes as inconsistent with other evidence. There is still hope that the plane will be found in the search zone, an expanse of 46,000 square miles, about the size of England. But ocean survey vessels have scoured about 90 percent of the area and are expected to finish the rest in August. Unless new information emerges, that is when the governments of Australia, Malaysia and China plan to abandon the search, leaving one of the greatest mysteries in the history of modern aviation unsolved. Flight MH370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, while flying to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, carrying 239 passengers and crew members from 15 nations. An analysis of radar and satellite communications data determined that the Boeing 777-200 made several turns and then flew south for five hours with little deviation. But investigators never pinpointed where the plane ran out of fuel. Instead, they identified a 400-mile arc from which the plane most likely sent its last satellite signal. Survey vessels have been going back and forth at walking speed across that swath of the southern Indian Ocean for two years, using sonar devices towed over the seafloor to scan the inky depths more than 2 miles below the waves. Investigators are now asking whether they have been looking in the right place. They are reconsidering an assumption that when the plane's engines ran dry, the aircraft spiraled into the sea without traveling a horizontal distance of more than 10 nautical miles - a relatively tight spiral. Analysts at Boeing and elsewhere have been re-examining their models of how the aircraft operating under autopilot might have responded to an initial loss of power on one side of the aircraft, and, up to 15 minutes later, on both sides. The simulations assume the right engine ran out of fuel first, because over its years of service that engine on the aircraft had tended to burn slightly more fuel than the left engine, according to records from Rolls-Royce, the engines' manufacturer. The three countries bankrolling the search for the missing Boeing 777-200 agreed in April last year not to expand the search area unless new information provided clear clues that the plane was somewhere else. So far, no evidence has emerged that would justify an expanded search, Dolan said. While the search for Flight MH370 is the largest and most costly in aviation history, relatives of passengers on the plane have called for it to be extended, as have many scientists, pilots, hobbyists and others mesmerized by the mystery of its disappearance. "There is no reason we should give up the search - at least they have to give us an answer," said Steve Wang, a technology company salesman in Beijing who has served as an unofficial spokesman for the families and whose 57-year-old mother was on the plane. "Everything about MH370 remains a mystery - what happened, and how?" The search zone was calculated using the last automatic signal sent by the aircraft's engines to a satellite just before it disappeared. The signal indicated the satellite system had been reset, suggesting a power failure, possibly caused by the engine's running out of fuel. Though the signal did not include location data, analysis of the time it took the transmission to travel to and from the satellite led investigators to focus on the 400-mile arc. Duncan Steel, a scientist on a panel of experts that has advised the Australian government, said the arc might have been drawn too far south. Investigators have assumed the plane was at cruising altitude when it sent its last signal, he said, but if the plane had started descending earlier as it ran low on fuel, it would have covered less distance before it hit the ocean. Investigators said May 12 that two pieces of debris recovered in March from South Africa and from Rodrigues Island, part of Mauritius, were "almost certainly" from the missing plane. But neither part - a piece of the interior panel in the main cabin and a piece of engine covering - provided significant information about the aircraft's location. Australia's minister of infrastructure and transport, Darren Chester, said on May 26 that two more pieces of debris had been found in Mauritius and another in Mozambique that would also be examined for possible links to the missing aircraft. The Australian government said on Friday that four more pieces of debris, three found on Madagascar and one on a southern Australian island, would be checked to determine whether they came from the missing plane. Three other pieces linked to the plane were discovered on African beaches last year and early this year. One was identified as clearly belonging to the right wing, while another was identified as "almost certainly" coming from the right wing and a third as "almost certainly" coming from the right side of the tail. The accumulation of parts from the aircraft's right side has led some to suggest that the plane may have changed course before it crashed, possibly under the control of a conscious pilot. http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/search-for-malaysian-airliner-how-far-can-a-jet-fly-on-fumes/ Back to Top

Black boxes could be improved by real­time jet data streaming Authorities last week continued their race against time to recover the flight recorders from Egypt Air Flight 804 before the batteries die on the devices' homing beacons. But the time­consuming and costly search for the black boxes of the Airbus 320 that crashed into the Mediterranean Sea on May 19 has raised questions about whether more should be done to transmit flight data in real time. "What we should care about is autonomous, uninterruptable, real­time tracking of aircraft position," aviation analyst Bob Mann said. Tracking aircraft on a second­by­second basis as they fly over the ocean would enable search­and­rescue teams to pinpoint the location of a downed plane to within a tiny one­tenth of a square mile area, Mann said. At present, two leading trade organizations, IATA and Airlines for America have set a goal that member airlines report their positions at least every 15 minutes, no matter where they are in the world. But with jetliners cruising at approximately 500 mph, a 15­minute reporting interval can leave a search area as large as 70,000 square miles, according to Mann. Moreover, the technology required for real­time tracking and reporting already exists, though no major carrier has yet installed it. Two Canadian companies say they have developed technologies that can go a long way toward augmenting black boxes. And aside from that, they claim that their devices can improve aircraft operating efficiency and reduce maintenance costs. "There aren't very many operators that will buy our system just to invest in safety," said Tom Schmutz, CEO of Calgary, Alberta­based Flyht Aerospace Solutions. "But not only can they save money; in the event there is a problem, they have this data they wouldn't otherwise have." The data box at the core of the Star Navigations system. It would track the aircraft and monitor its parameters. Flyht and Toronto­based Star Navigation Systems are separately marketing solutions that monitor flight operations and have the ability to stream them to the ground in real time. Viraf Kapadia, CEO of Star Navigation, said that his company's system is operated by means of a small onboard computer that taps into the existing data flow on an aircraft. The Star system continuously tracks the aircraft and monitors various parameters, including, for example, engine temperature and the angle of attack. Customers such as commercial airlines can track the status of their craft in real time and can set threshold levels for setting off an alert. When a threshold is met, an alert is immediately beamed via satellite to the ground, where the airline can access it. Warnings can also trigger real­time reporting of common flight data, including mechanical information and position tracking. Kapadia said that in an emergency, his computer is capable of transmitting such data every second, though airlines may choose to transmit it less often in order to save expense. "There is a money cost, as well as a moral cost," Kapadia said. "And I don't know why the international agencies don't come out and say, 'Tracking every 10 and 15 seconds with airlines.'" He said that the Star Navigation system sends a report to the airline after every flight. The reports shed light on the craft's operations, helping the customer save fuel and pinpoint the best time to undertake maintenance. That would more than recover the approximately $105,000 per plane that the onboard computer would cost to purchase and operate over the first year, Kapadia said. Star Navigation has yet to sell a unit to a commercial airline, though the system has been tested by airlines in Canada and Asia. Flyht, on the other hand, is already doing business with 50 airlines, Schmutz said, though none is a major player in the industry. He cited Air Niugini in New Guinea and the U.S. charter operator Omni as examples of his customer base. Like Star Navigation, the Flyht system monitors the operations of an aircraft and sends an alert when an operating threshold is exceeded. At that point, real­time data streaming can be triggered. "Our objective is not to replace the black box," Schmutz said. "It holds hours and hours of information. We're trying to augment the black box." The Flyht system costs less than $100,000 per plane installed, he said. Though systems such as Star Navigation and Flyht offer options to airlines, Mann says the best way to make sure jetliners like Malaysia Air Flight 370, which famously disappeared over the South China Sea in 2014, never get lost again is to require real­time reporting each second. That reporting should be uninterruptable and autonomous, he said, meaning that it happens without the need for any action from an aircraft or airline and can't be switched off. An autonomous tracking regime will more or less be in place over ground in the U.S. in 2020, when aircraft will be required to be equipped with Automatic Dependent Surveillance­Broadcast systems, which will enable air traffic controllers to track planes with the satellite­based NextGen system that the FAA currently has under development.   Mann said autonomous reporting should be instituted globally. By continuously collecting data on a flight's location and heading, but not other bandwidth­consuming information such as cockpit recordings and engine monitoring, he said, such a system could be both functional and affordable. "This could be done now, but isn't," Mann said.