This Isn’t the First Time that a Giant Plane With GPS Tracking Has Vanished

[n2doc]

The disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight 370 is the most bizarre story in aviation history. Or is it? A plane disappeared in 2003 under even stranger circumstances

Ever since planes were invented, there have been stories of them disappearing mysteriously. There was Amelia Earhart in 1937, Pan Am Flight 7 in 1957 and the Flying Tiger Line in 1963.

we live in the digital era. Thousands of satellites roam above the earth, shooting aerial images directly to our computers. How does a massive plane with built-in GPS and high-tech instruments meant to track and telegraph its every move suddenly disappear? It makes no sense. The story of Malaysian Airlines flight 370 resembles something closer to fiction; it could be the basis for a David Lynch movie, or an episode out of The X-Files.

But it’s not the first time a modern plane—with GPS and all the other trappings of 21st-century aviation—has disappeared. Before Flight 370, there was just one other jet of this size to have disappeared in modern aviation history: the Boeing 844AA.


more

http://www.vocativ.com/tech/machines/isnt-first-time-giant-plane-gps-tracking-vanished/

[Kelvin Mace]

1. Not comparable

The plane was in the middle of Angola, flown by unlicensed pilots who took off in the middle of the night without permission and with their lights and transponder off.

[Voice for Peace]

12. not to mention all the passengers.

[petronius]

2. Fascinating, thanks! I'd never heard of that... (nt)

[moondust]

3. My question:

Why isn't the transponder hard-wired to stay on at all times so that nobody can turn it off? The pilot could still send signals with it, just not turn it completely off.

Anybody?

[Corgigal]

4. because it would drive the ground controller

at all the airports nuts.

[moondust]

5. What does the ground controller see/hear? n/t

[Corgigal]

6. the ground at that airports

They are responsible for clearances to airplane to cross runways, and all directions on the airport grounds. Then you have the arrival controller, also at the airport, who is responsible for plane that are currently in the air, and are coming to runways.

[Duckhunter935]

7. I was thinking about that also

And a pilot and investigator explained the same thing. They have to be turned off on the ground. There is another system that is coming online to get around this and will always tag a planes position that can not be turned off. With this I wounder if the present system could be modified to shut down at say 100-500 feet automatically without the pilot being able to switch it off.

The first piece of that system — which carries the cumbersome label of Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast, or ADS-B — is a new form of transponder that broadcasts to ground stations more precise information than does radar.

ADS-B data will pinpoint a jet’s location using GPS technology and will also include the plane’s trajectory, which radar data does not.

And while long-range radar towers sweep around up to about once every 16 seconds to get a fix on an aircraft’s position, ADS-B will fix its location every second.

All the planes that roll off the Boeing and Airbus assembly lines now come with ADS-B preinstalled.

The technology will be mandatory for airliners flying in the U.S. by 2020, and two years earlier in Europe.

http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2023134658_airplanesflighttrackingxml.html

[moondust]

13. I'm surprised

that Boeing or the FAA or somebody didn't mandate an always-on tracking system a long time ago.

[bobduca]

8. An "aviation expert" on a BBC Newshour program this week

The expert explained the reason for allowing it to be shut off in-air, was also being a safety reason.
Specifically in case the component is malfunctioning, this can possibly cause shorting/electrical fires, so pilots need to be able to manually disconnect the transponder system.

[Corgigal]

10. Remember transponders are for the ATC system

it allows controllers, in all sectors, to know who they are and what they are doing. The plane/pilot already knows who they are. It also allows positive control from different ATC centers to pass off with little voice coordination.

Some airport will have a ground control radar, I don't believe most don't.

Below is a youtube video of how complicated ground control can be..

[truedelphi]

16. If you wanna know a whole lot more than you know abt equipment on

Modern day aircraft, here is a good read:

http://www.jimstonefreelance.com/

To get to his discussion about Malayasian Airlines Flight 370, you have to scroll down about half the opening page.

Very speculative, and pls feel free to ignore his political conclusions. But his information about equipment and what it does, and if it does or doesn't have a backup system, if it can or can't be tampered with by say, CIA, etc is probably one of the more informative items on the situation that I have found.

[jeff47]

18. Aside from all the answers you got so far

There's an even more basic answer:

If you remove the "off" switch on the transponder, the pilot can still turn off the circuit breaker.

And you can't remove that capability without introducing a rather large fire and electrical hazard.

[JimDandy]

9. What could make this disappearance even worse than it is

is that the black box holds only 2 hours worth of data. Since the plane flew for five more hours after voice contact was lost and the plane changed direction and altitude, all of the data that could have told investigators what was happening during that time has been written over.

There may be no black box data available at all though, because the pilot or whoever hijacked the plane can simply switch off the black box!

[malaise]

11. You mean an American AIrlines aircraft vanished under Bush and Cheney's watch?

I thought they kept America safe.

[Iggo]

15. Only a couple years after 9/11, too.

Heckuva job, chimpy.

[Schema Thing]

14. Has everyone forgotten the documentary "Lost"???

[truedelphi]

17. Uh, apparently that documentary has been, how should we put it -

"Lost."




(But please feel free to fill us in.)