Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: Facts as of March 16
The recent disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 came up repeatedly at a dinner party last night. While media reports have been long on speculation, I felt short on facts. So I've done some spade work to determine the currently known "facts" as best I can.
As far as I can gather, here is what is known about #MH370 as of Sunday, March 16. Precise details on the functionality and disabling of communication systems for the 777 aircraft are hard to come by. As a mere layman trying to pin down what we know, I welcome any and all to correct my assertions below.
1) The flight departed from Kuala Lumpur International Airport on 8 March at 00:41 local time (16:41 UTC, 7 March). It was scheduled to land at Beijing Capital International Airport at 06:30 local time (22:30 UTC, 7 March). It had 239 people on board—a flight crew of 12 (all Malaysian) and 227 passengers. 154 of the passengers were Chinese. There were 2 Canadians and 3 Americans on board together with citizens from up to 11 other countries.
2) The plane was a $50 million Boeing 777-200ER. The pilot and first officer were Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, and Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, both Malaysian citizens. The former joined the company in 1981; the latter in 2007. One of the passengers has been identified on the passenger manifest as a 29-year-old Malaysian, an aircraft engineer for a private jet firm.
3) Two men identified on the flight manifest, a 61-year-old Austrian and a 37-year-old Italian, had reported their passports stolen in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Two Iranian male passengers, aged 18 and 29, now since named, were flying with these passports. American officials have not found any known terrorist connection for pilots or passengers, incl. 2 Iranian men. The head of Interpol said the two Iranian men are believed to be asylum seekers.
4) The plane is equipped with two broadcasting communication systems: a) its transponders (main & backup) which communicate with civilian air traffic controllers and convey location, altitude, speed and call sign, and b) Aircraft and Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) that lets pilots send text message-like communiques to flight operations staff and allows the plane’s systems themselves to communicate too. According to a friend who works at ICAO friend, ACARS data can be transmitted automatically in one of four ways: VHF ACARS operating at low speed data to line of sight ground stations; VHF ACARS at high speed using VDL Mode 2 to line of sight ground stations; ACARS over Iridium satellite using short burst data; and HF ACARS where the data is transmitted by ionospheric propagation to one of several ground stations around the world. Both the transponders and the ACARS were manually turned off within Malaysian air space, not at the same time as would happen in a crash but, it appears, within minutes of each other, ACARS at 1:07 am and transponder at 1:21 am local time.
5) Turning off the transponder could be done by toggling a switch in the cockpit that you would move from “ON” to “SBY” (standby) or “OFF” modes. The information part of the ACARS system was shut down, but not the SATCOM link part for which, apparently, it would be necessary to go to an electronics bay beneath the cockpit. Turning off any of these systems require pilot/crew involvement, coerced or not. Despite being deactivated, the ACARS continued to send out automated electronic “handshakes” / pings which contain no explicit location info, once an hour by satellite for four to five hours.
6) The last voice communication from the cockpit at roughly 1:30 am were the words: “All right, good night.” They were uttered at the Vietnam air traffic control border, but after the ACARS and the transponder had, it is claimed, already been shut off. The plane then took a sharp left turn back over Malaysian air space.
7) The last confirmed signal of any kind between the plane and a satellite came at 8:11 am local time—7 hours and 31 minutes after takeoff. If the plane was still in the air at that point, it would have been near its fuel limit. An Inmarsat-3 satellite in geostationary orbit 22,250 miles over the middle of the Indian Ocean received the transmission. This transmission only establishes the angle between the satellite and the plane and does not identify precise location. At take-off, the plane had enough fuel to fly for up to about 8 hours.
8) Based on the angle from which the plane sent the ping, it came from somewhere along one of two arcs: a) roughly over China somewhere from southern border of Kazakhstan to northern Thailand, or b) somewhere from near Jakarta to the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia. This signal could only have been sent if the plane was intact and powered.
9) The plane flew for up to 7.5 hours off official flight track, indicating the diversion was clearly intentional. The plane flew for six more hours after leaving Malaysian airspace. Military radar appear to show the plane may have climbed to 45K feet (2K feet above the flight ceiling of a 777-200) and then well below cruising height to 23K feet.