MH 370: Missing Malaysian Airliner

[David Guyatt]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/world/....html?_r=0


Lost Jet's Path Seen as Altered via Computer

Marlene, I hope you don't mind, but I thought I'd copy and paste that entire article here too.

ASIA PACIFIC

Lost Jet's Path Seen as Altered via Computer

By MATTHEW L. WALD and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDTMARCH 17, 2014



Photo

A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER, flight 318 to Beijing, sat on the tarmac Monday at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Flight 318 replaces 370, retired out of respect to the passengers and crew of the missing plane. CreditEdgar Su/Reuters

WASHINGTON The first turn to the west that diverted the missing Malaysia Airlines plane from its planned flight path from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing was carried out through a computer system that was most likely programmed by someone in the plane's cockpit who was knowledgeable about airplane systems, according to senior American officials.
Instead of manually operating the plane's controls, whoever altered Flight 370's path typed seven or eight keystrokes into a computer on a knee-high pedestal between the captain and the first officer, according to officials. The Flight Management System, as the computer is known, directs the plane from point to point specified in the flight plan submitted before a flight. It is not clear whether the plane's path was reprogrammed before or after it took off.

• [URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/opinion/out-of-control.html"]
  
  Op-Ed Contributor: Out of ControlMARCH 17, 2014
  
  [/URL]
  

The fact that the turn away from Beijing was programmed into the computer has reinforced the belief of investigators first voiced by Malaysian officials that the plane was deliberately diverted and that foul play was involved. It has also increased their focus on the plane's captain and first officer.
Continue reading the main storyEstimated range of plane with its remaining fuel if it was flying at the plane's maximum speed:

KAZAKHSTAN

MONGOLIA

UZBEK.
KYRG.
TAJIK.

60 min. of fuel

20 min.

AFGHAN.

Approx. area within the top and bottom 20-min. ranges:
2 million square miles

PAKISTAN

CHINA

NEPAL

BANGLADESH

INDIA

MYANMAR

LAOS

Approx. time
after takeoff

THAILAND

VIETNAM

+40 min. Last contact with civilian radar.

First weeksearch area

MALAYSIA

Kuala Lumpur airport

+1 hour 34 min. Last contact with military radar.

INDONESIA

Position of satellite that received last known signal
from plane.

+7.5 hours Red arcs represent possible positions of plane when it transmitted last signal to satellite.

INDIAN OCEAN

Plane may have flown up to another hour after its last satellite transmission.

AUSTRALIA

By SERGIO PEÇANHA, ARCHIE TSE and TIM WALLACE
Source: Malaysian government

On Tuesday, the Chinese ambassador to Malaysia, Huang Huikang, told reporters that the Chinese government had ruled out suspicions of the Chinese on board, who made up about two-thirds of the 227 passengers, according to Chinese news organizations.
Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia told reporters on Saturday that his government believed that the plane had been diverted because its transponder and other communications devices had been manually turned off several minutes apart. American officials were told of the new information over the weekend.
Continue reading the main storyRELATED COVERAGE

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But the Malaysian authorities on Monday reversed themselves on the sequence of events they believe took place on the plane in the crucial minutes before ground controllers lost contact with it early on March 8. They said it was the plane's first officer the co-pilot who was the last person in the cockpit to speak to ground control. And they withdrew their assertion that another automated system on the plane, the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, or Acars, had already been disabled when the co-pilot spoke.
Continue reading the main storyVideoPLAY VIDEO

VIDEO|0:52

CreditVincent Thian/Associated Press

Airline on Plane's Communication System

The chief executive of Malaysia Airlines says it is unclear when the missing plane's communications system, known as Acars, was switched off.
Flight 370's Flight Management System reported its status to the Acars, which in turn transmitted information back to a maintenance base, according to an American official. This shows that the reprogramming happened before the Acars stopped working. The Acars ceased to function about the same time that oral radio contact was lost and the airplane's transponder also stopped, fueling suspicions that foul play was involved in the plane's disappearance.
Investigators are scrutinizing radar tapes from when the plane first departed Kuala Lumpur because they believe the tapes will show that after the plane first changed its course, it passed through several pre-established "waypoints," which are like virtual mile markers in the sky. That would suggest the plane was under control of a knowledgeable pilot because passing through those points without using the computer would have been unlikely.
According to investigators, it appears that a waypoint was added to the planned route. Pilots do that in the ordinary course of flying if air traffic controllers tell them to take a different route, to avoid weather or traffic. But in this case, the waypoint was far off the path to Beijing.
Continue reading the main story[URL="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/03/17/world/asia/search-for-flight-370.html"]GRAPHIC

The Search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

Maps and diagrams showing how investigators are piecing together the path of the missing plane.

OPEN GRAPHIC

[/URL]Whoever changed the plane's course would have had to be familiar with Boeing aircraft, though not necessarily the 777 the type of plane that disappeared. American officials and aviation experts said it was far-fetched to believe that a passenger could have reprogrammed the Flight Management System.
Normal procedure is to key in a five-letter code gibberish to nonaviators that is the name of a waypoint. A normal flight plan consists of a series of such waypoints, ending in the destination airport. For an ordinary flight, waypoints can be entered manually or uploaded into the F.M.S. by the airline.
One of the pilots keys in a waypoint on a separate screen known as a scratchpad, and after confirming that it has no typographical errors, pushes another button to move it into the sequence already in the flight plan. Normal practice is to orally confirm the waypoint with the other pilot, then push another button to instruct the airplane to go there. With the change in course, the plane would bank at a comfortable angle, around 20 degrees, and make the turn. Passengers would not feel anything unusual.

I have a question or two. Read the opening para again:

WASHINGTON The first turn to the west that diverted the missing Malaysia Airlines plane from its planned flight path from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing was carried out through a computer system that was most likely programmed by someone in the plane's cockpit who was knowledgeable about airplane systems, according to senior American officials.

How do those unnamed American officials exactly know the diversion was carried out by someone in the plane's cockpit? They weren't there were they?

Instead of manually operating the plane's controls, whoever altered Flight 370's path typed seven or eight keystrokes into a computer on a knee-high pedestal between the captain and the first officer, according to officials. The Flight Management System, as the computer is known, directs the plane from point to point specified in the flight plan submitted before a flight. It is not clear whether the plane's path was reprogrammed before or after it took off.

How do the same unnamed officials know it was seven our eight keystrokes into a computer on a knee high pedestal?

What exactly is the Times saying here? Simple conjecture, deflection, BS or fact based knowledge?

It's a quite curious article all in all.