Boeing 777 Missing in Asia

[Toma]

I'm honestly bewildered that they can't find a missing plane. That's crazy.

[CapnCrunch]

Originally posted by FraserB
They might be searching there to cover the possibility that the military radar was correct when it showed the plane do a 180* turn before it disappeared.

But why are they searching so far away? Did they track it flying all the way over there or something?

[Gman.45]

They haven't released that info Capn, another thing that is strange. Small details have leaked out about the military radar closest to the aircraft getting paints of it reversing course before losing contact, but that's all that's come out, nothing about further course/airspeed info, nothing. The families have said the airline has been stonewalling them as well.

I agree with others, regardless of whatever explanation that is used, mine included, the handling of this so far has been pretty poor on a PR and decency level.

[Cos]

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[lilmira]

Originally posted by Gman.45

Does anyone else find it extremely strange that 19 families have signed a joint statement showing video proof of their missing family members cell phone ringing, and often connecting in the last hours since the plane has been declared missing and overdue? WTH is with that? It's been a decade since I worked for Telus, so I'm not all that conversant on modern cell tech, and how this ringing/connecting could be explained, but in my experience, if a phone is off or destroyed, it either rings rapid busy, goes to voicemail, or gives the standard "you can't connect" for whatever carrier is being used - not ringing for dozens of rings, and then making connecting/hangup sounds.....very odd.

It could easily be the phone left somewhere else, like at home. If this is the same for several cellphones belong to the people on board, that's eerie.

[Redlyne_mr2]

You'd still think people would try to text while going down. Sure messages wouldn't go through at 35K feet but at 10K feet and below they would have.

[benyl]

Originally posted by Toma
I'm honestly bewildered that they can't find a missing plane. That's crazy.

Took them a year to find Steve Fosset's plane in the mountains.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Fossett

It isn't far fetched.

[Gman.45]

19 families have signed a joint statement saying their missing loved ones' phones have been ringing when called, often with them seeming to be hung up after several rings. I've seen a video, I'll post the link, but it's in Chinese, of two families showing the phones ringing on video. So, it isn't just a single phone or a fluke, there are at least 19 different families swearing on a legal document and many showing video proof of this. It is very odd, for certain.

[benyl]

Originally posted by Redlyne_mr2
You'd still think people would try to text while going down. Sure messages wouldn't go through at 35K feet but at 10K feet and below they would have.

Not if they are the middle of nowhere.

[2.2vtec]

Originally posted by Redlyne_mr2
You'd still think people would try to text while going down. Sure messages wouldn't go through at 35K feet but at 10K feet and below they would have.

Unless high jackers took everyones phone and not everyones was turned off which would explain why nobody texted.

[codetrap]

Originally posted by Gman.45
19 families have signed a joint statement saying their missing loved ones' phones have been ringing when called, often with them seeming to be hung up after several rings. I've seen a video, I'll post the link, but it's in Chinese, of two families showing the phones ringing on video. So, it isn't just a single phone or a fluke, there are at least 19 different families swearing on a legal document and many showing video proof of this. It is very odd, for certain.

If the phones were ringing, then they're online. If they're online, they they're able to be accessed by "911" geolocation services.

[FraserB]

But to ring, the phone would still need to have service. So that means the plane is on the ground somewhere close the service are or the phone was left turned on at home. I'd really believe the second explanation before I considered the first.

[Mitsu3000gt]

I have a hard time believing 19+ people left their phones at home. I don't know a single person who doesn't travel with their cell phone, especially these days. Also, it would be extremely easy to verify if these people left their phones at home by going and checking.

I wonder if they can tell which cell towers it's connecting to when ringing . Obviously they would be trying all this stuff already if it's possible. I'm sure the FBI is all over it.

[01RedDX]

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[codetrap]

Originally posted by Mitsu3000gt
I wonder if they can tell which cell towers it's connecting to when ringing . Obviously they would be trying all this stuff already if it's possible. I'm sure the FBI is all over it.

Of course they can tell. The phone company knows exactly what is connecting where, when it switches towers, approximately how far it's from the tower, and using 3 towers they can pinpoint it's location.. that's without the phone saying, "I'm at xx lat by yy long", which pretty much every single modern phone has in it, regardless of your settings.

I'm of the opinion that this thing is blown up, crashed and sunk.

[lilmira]

You think they can narrow down the area from the cellphone signal if that's the case. There are how many countries, people spending a significant amount of time and money looking for the plane but hey who would have thought to use find my phone?

[Redlyne_mr2]

After reading about the Air france 447 crash it looks like it is possible to loose a plane for an extended period of time from a crash. If the black box makes it's way to the ocean floor it might never be found.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447

Originally posted by codetrap

I'm of the opinion that this thing is blown up, crashed and sunk.

[UndrgroundRider]

I wouldn't put too much stock into the phone ringing thing. The Chinese passengers would've had their phones last registered on a cellular network in Malaysia. When people call their Chinese numbers the cell network tries to pass the call to the Malaysia exchange.

Transferring calls across international exchanges is imperfect. The systems often run on different standards, are different ages and are made by different manufacturers. Most of these systems are not well integrated and aside from simply dialling numbers, do not exchange much information (such as the connected status of roaming phones). When dealing with really old hardware it's not uncommon to "answer" a call and play fake ringing tones while passing it to the foreign exchange.

Sometimes you can tell when this happens because the real ringing tones of the foreign exchange are sometimes different. So you get a couple fake rings from the home exchange, and then the real rings from the foreign one. Anyone who calls people travelling in Mexico has experienced this.

The answering/hangup after a few rings is probably the foreign exchange trying to figure out how to handle the call after it can't connect it. Sometimes the foreign exchange will redirect the call back to the home exchange's voicemail system. Unfortunately with old systems the meta data is lost, such as caller id, called number, etc. that the voicemail system doesn't know what to do with the call and just hangs up.

I work with a lot of people that travel all over central america, Europe and in Asia a bit. This kind of thing is super common.

[Nitro5]

We should drag in the pilot's wife and interrogate her. She has to know what is going on.

[lilmira]

If I remember correctly, the sea was pretty rough during the search for the Air France jet that they had to call it off for a period of time. Plus they received automatic error message (pitot tube reading?)from the plane prior to its disappearance. In the case of the MH flight, there was nothing, no message, no communication. Feel bad for the families but what do you expect Malay Air to tell you now? The plane is still missing?