Reply to: 300 objects scattered over a wide area of ocean

[MarillionFan]

So they spotted "orange objects" in the new search area. Unthinkable that it could be liferafts I guess.

Oranges. You heard it here first.

[mudskipper]

So they spotted "orange objects" in the new search area. Unthinkable that it could be liferafts I guess.

[stek]

500 bus stops?

Oh yes!

[minsky1]

300 objects might seem a tad too many
300 objects with me and my friend Kenny...

John Shuttleworth

500 bus stops?

[OwlHoot]

Three things:

1. 300 objects scattered over a wide area of ocean says to me "explosion" rather than "plane hits ocean at speed and promptly sinks rapidly" - does it not? I am not a pilot, but I have an A-level in Further Maths with Mechanics. Discuss. ...

Depends on the objects I suppose, but assuming the plane ditched in the ocean at some stage, 300 sounds a pretty modest number of small to medium sized objects, even in the unlikely event everyone was able to slide down the emergency shutes and safely into life rafts, and more so if the plane disintegrated to a greater or lesser extent on impact with the water.

Also, there are powerful ocean currents and winds round there that would disperse floating objects before long.

[hyperD]

HyperDs alien theory is still at least a proboscis in front.

FTFY

[suityou01]

HyperDs alien theory is still at least a nose in front.

[mudskipper]

The new area seems to be based on recalculating where it was likely to crash based on its speed.

So what about all the debris? Are they now dismissing it?

[mudskipper]

And the search area has moved again

BBC News - LIVE: Malaysia Airlines flight MH370: Search area shifts

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Three things:

1. 300 objects scattered over a wide area of ocean says to me "explosion" rather than "plane hits ocean at speed and promptly sinks rapidly" - does it not? I am not a pilot, but I have an A-level in Further Maths with Mechanics. Discuss.

No - explosion would say 30000 bits scattered over a wider area.

2. Someone somewhere, quite possibly a Bob, has written auto pilot software along the lines of: try {...} catch {fly to south pole}, seriously, and that would not surprise me one jot. Discuss.

Control software is duplicated and written by separate teams, the systems run in parallel for redundancy - not sure about 777, but Airbus IIRC has at least three versions of anything critical running in real time, precisely so that a bit of bad code doesn't bring the plane down.

3. I have returned from permiedom. Can I now have my licence back please? Discuss.

M

No idea how that works.

[CoolCat]

re "Someone somewhere, quite possibly a Bob, has written auto pilot software along the lines of" plenty of life critical stuff has been written by raw grads with limited supervision... lots of it live out there...

[gricerboy]

Three things:

1. 300 objects scattered over a wide area of ocean says to me "explosion" rather than "plane hits ocean at speed and promptly sinks rapidly" - does it not? I am not a pilot, but I have an A-level in Further Maths with Mechanics. Discuss.

2. Someone somewhere, quite possibly a Bob, has written auto pilot software along the lines of: try {...} catch {fly to south pole}, seriously, and that would not surprise me one jot. Discuss.

3. I have returned from permiedom. Can I now have my licence back please? Discuss.

M

Blimey O'Reilly!

There's a blast from the past.

Dennis Wise didn't work out too well did he?

[hyperD]

Three things:

1. 300 objects scattered over a wide area of ocean says to me "explosion" rather than "plane hits ocean at speed and promptly sinks rapidly" - does it not? I am not a pilot, but I have an A-level in Further Maths with Mechanics. Discuss.

When a plane hits the water at high speed then the kinetic energy of the falling object is very high and the effect is like crashing into concrete which is why most aircraft break up when experiencing an uncontrolled impact into the sea unless, like the Hudson event, it was a controlled landing and a very good one at that, kudos to Sullenberger.

With the current supposition of the incident that suggests a plane running out of fuel at high altitude and a possible uncontrolled descent into the sea, after 3 weeks of wreckage being exposed to tidal forces, it may well be that it has spread over a large area.

At the moment, we don't know anything until all the wreckage and flight recorder are identified and found.

[stek]

300 objects might seem a tad too many
300 objects with me and my friend Kenny...

John Shuttleworth

[amcdonald]

Either no ones knows yet, or a government does and is covering it up


The press though no sod all hence all the crackpot theories