Community Chat

[Yuban3]

On 4/12/2014 ROMARY said:

They need to double the battery output on those black boxes. Maybe in the future.

No matter how long they make the batteries last, eventually the batteries WILL run out.

They could make the batteries last six months, but, even then, at the end of the six months, the batteries will run out.

No battery lasts forever.

[Lynnj]

On 4/12/2014 Yuban3 said:

On 4/12/2014 Lynnj said:

Recovering the box(es) isn't really going to tell anything. They only record 2 hours worth of data, then start to record over itself, only leaving a total of two hours of data. The plane traveled longer than 2 hours after it lost contact with anyone. So I am not sure what will be on it that will tell anyone what happened.

Even if they find the plane, we will never really know what happened.

The VOICE recorder only records two hours.

The DATA recorder records the whole flight.

Two different boxes that record two different things.

And what are you going to get from the data? That it turned left or right, flew high or low? We already know that. Once they find this plane, you will still never know if it was the pilots or anyone else, and you'll never know the motive.

[Yuban3]

On 4/12/2014 Lynnj said:

On 4/12/2014 Yuban3 said:

On 4/12/2014 Lynnj said:

Recovering the box(es) isn't really going to tell anything. They only record 2 hours worth of data, then start to record over itself, only leaving a total of two hours of data. The plane traveled longer than 2 hours after it lost contact with anyone. So I am not sure what will be on it that will tell anyone what happened.

Even if they find the plane, we will never really know what happened.

The VOICE recorder only records two hours.

The DATA recorder records the whole flight.

Two different boxes that record two different things.

And what are you going to get from the data? That it turned left or right, flew high or low? We already know that. Once they find this plane, you will still never know if it was the pilots or anyone else, and you'll never know the motive.

With the DATA recorder, we will know precisely what happened, and when it happened. As of today, we do NOT know what happened from one minute to the next, let alone one second to the next.

Also, even with the recorders, we may NEVER know the motive.

Also, the data recorders record a lot more than just up and down, left and right. They give detail account of what systems were on, what buttons, knobs, levers were pushed/pulled, and when.

And we do NOT know every single last button that was pushed, lever that was pulled, knob that was turned, and EXACTLY the PRECISE MOMENT that that happened.

The DATA recorder will tell us that.

[Lacey1]

It seems to tech-ignorant , fuddy-duddy me, that my smart phone has better technology than this whole Malaysian airline. I never heard an adequate explanation why someone could MANUALLY disable any type of tracking/recording device. Didn't anyone consider a rogue pilot/terrorist maybe shouldn't be able to do that???? Plus, with all the satellites in the sky, there is no way that a plane that large could go 'off the grid'. Pizza Hut has a satellite for God's sake. I think that they are going to 'conclude' that the now dead pings belonged to the missing plane, but recovery will not be possible. Now, they talk about what they could learn from this-inexcusable negligence IMO.

[gardenman]

On 4/13/2014 lacey1 said:

It seems to tech-ignorant , fuddy-duddy me, that my smart phone has better technology than this whole Malaysian airline. I never heard an adequate explanation why someone could MANUALLY disable any type of tracking/recording device. Didn't anyone consider a rogue pilot/terrorist maybe shouldn't be able to do that???? Plus, with all the satellites in the sky, there is no way that a plane that large could go 'off the grid'. Pizza Hut has a satellite for God's sake. I think that they are going to 'conclude' that the now dead pings belonged to the missing plane, but recovery will not be possible. Now, they talk about what they could learn from this-inexcusable negligence IMO.

Pilots have to be able to manually shut down any system on the plane in case of fire or malfunction. If your computer or smartphone freezes you turn it off to reset it. It's the same with the major systems on a plane. Stuff happens and systems freeze or perform incorrectly and need to be reset. A short circuit could become an out of control fire if the circuit can't be deactivated. Pilots have to have those options available to them. It's far more likely that they'll need to shut down/reset something than it is a plane will mysteriously disappear. It's generally assumed a terrorist wouldn't know enough to be able to turn off the systems and a rogue pilot could crash a plane whenever he/she chose to, with or without systems being turned off.

Planes are big relative to people, but microscopic compared to the size of the planet. While it's true that we have satellites that can read a license plate from thousands of miles in space, to do so though they must know where to look. Once again, it's a big, big planet and planes are teensy little things compared to the size of the planet. Without knowing in advance that a plane was going to mysteriously fly thousands of miles off course and into a completely unmonitored part of the world any conventional form of satellite surveillance would be useless. The way they narrowed down its location was through an unconventional use of what is typically a routine data ping from the aircraft to a satellite. They now know they can do that and it's reasonably accurate, so that's likely to be built upon in the future, but you must remember things like this just don't generally happen. Planes don't typically make u-turns, radically change altitudes and fly thousands of miles in the opposite direction before disappearing. This was a largely unprecedented event.

[bells4me]

It will be years before the answers are known, it then.

[151949]

Per CNN - they are mapping out an area with a sonar device and will then send down a robotic submarine with a camera to look around the mapped area. That is how they found the Titanic.

[Yuban3]

On 4/13/2014 happy housewife said:

Per CNN - they are mapping out an area with a sonar device and will then send down a robotic submarine with a camera to look around the mapped area. That is how they found the Titanic.

70 years after it sank.

[RainCityGirl]

Official: Black Boxes Crucial to Solving Mystery

This was the headline on CNN's homepage today. Hello? Is this some earth shattering news scoop? The biggest problem with this whole tragedy has been the news coverage in several different parts of the world. Why don't they just tell the public, there is nothing new and that we will all have to wait for any breakthroughs. Instead these news stations, particularly the cable networks are so afraid they won't have the lead on the story that they tell us "breaking news" that is simply warmed over news. Saturday Night Live even made fun of CNN last night. Jon Stewart is constantly taking them and others to task for non news reporting.