Last year Boeing issued an Airworthiness Directive for other models of B777, to look for cracking in the fuselage skin under the SATCOM transceiver antenna. Such cracking could lead, in extremis, to rapid decompression. "The FAA said it had also determined that this unsafe condition “is likely to exist or develop in other products of the same type design”."
Posit a Helios 552 like incident.
Chain of events:
Fuselage ruptures under the SATCOM antenna housing, damaging the SATCOM antenna connections and causing rapid decompression.
At the same time, a previously undetected fault in the gas supply to the pilots' oxygen masks starves them of oxygen. (Plane underwent maintenance 12 days prior to the flight; what if an empty O2 bottle was installed by mistake for a full one, or a valve was jammed, or ...?)
The crew would not succumb to hypoxia immediately. They probably had enough conscious-but-confused time to dial a course change into the autopilot, reduce altitude by 5000 feet, and broadcast a Mayday that nobody hears because it never gets out of the airframe (antenna is disconnected).
Then they lose consciousness.
The plane drills on into the big blue for six more hours with the pilots dead at the controls, like Paine Stewart's LearJet. The cabin crew are unable to get through the reinforced door before their portable oxygen bottles run out: the aircraft finally runs out of fuel and comes down somewhere over the middle of the Indian or Pacific Oceans.
We might not find it for years.
If this turns out to be what happened, expect the airline industry to start pushing back hard against the reinforced cockpit door requirement.
Losing Helios 552 might be a freak accident, but if decompression and a locked door led to the loss of MA370 as well, then this would be a new threat that will now have killed many times more people than have died as a result of hijackings since 9/11.
]]>Ditching in a lake, river, or conveniently sheltered bay seems like an altogether different situation to ditching at sea regardless of aircraft type. Open ocean is never going to be as smooth as inland water and everything might go perfectly well right up until the point where a wingtip or engine nacelle encounters the crest of a wave sending 200 tons of fragile airplane into a messy disintegrating 150 MPH cartwheel...
]]>What do you call the guy who graduated at the bottom of his class in med school? Doctor. What do you call the guy who graduated bottom of his class from flight school? A pilot. Captain, if you're unlucky. And even the good ones with lots of experience can still be caught in a pickle and crash.
]]>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zubr-class_LCAC
was not practical, so they leased an experimental nuclear-powered ekranoplan from the Ukrainian gouvernment (you really thought Crimea was only bout ethnic minorities and naval ports?). Problem is, the captain was ordered to intercept the plane, but he heard engage...
On another note, any incidences of people sending e-mails about salvaged cargo, most likely from the Nigerian embassy to KL, and actually, if you send in 1000 dollars..?
]]>Not that many people actually see an aircraft - the control tower people go by radar and radio, passengers board through covered walkways. The only people you really need to fool or suborn are the ground crew.
Then all you need is a drone with a properly-coded transponder and a radio to make the right signals for the ATC... assuming you can't just insert the data directly into a hacked ATC infrastructure. Turn the electronics off, and the phantom plane vanishes.
Yeah, some holes, but they could be plastered over with a bit of work.
]]>Windows, sir[1], windows. I'm not sure I've ever boarded a plane without first seeing it from the boarding lounge or the walkway. I like to try to see what the registration of an aircraft is as I board. (OK, so I usually fail.)
[1] Or Ma'am should that be appropriate
]]>No, easier to have the right aircraft take off and then do a handover to a drone as it climbs out.
]]>And at DFW it's easy to get in a plane you can't see. Some of those ramps go out a ways, turn a corner, then split into 3 gates before you get to the plan.
]]>In which case, I suppose it depends on what KL is like. Charlie's been through there but he's away, and the person I know who goes to KL a lot is actually currently flying Malaysian from Perth up to KL so he's also out of contact, but either of them would be able to clarify what KL's air bridges are like.
As for ground control and ATC, you might well be right. So it might be possible at some airports, we don't know about KL.
]]>And then you have areas like Boston a decade or few back where you got on a special bus that drove out to the plane and then raised itself up so you could exit from the bus directly onto the plane. I guess the airport/airline does what they have to do to add flights when there's no physical gates left. Basically a gate ramp on wheels.
]]>a) A big mobile tube connected to the airbridge, and took away the passengers. Obviously, this tube is effectively a fully fitted out fuselage with wings visible through its windows from inside to lull the passengers, because otherwise a ruckus would be raised. Either that, or the airbridge itself was faked, and none of the passengers had ever used that gate before.
b) The Bizjet sneaks out from behind a hanger to do the flight and does the whole transponder thing. It need never have gone near the airbridge.
In the detective story, this one appears to be lacking both motive and opportunity, but it might be usable for a particularly wild conspiracy thriller.
]]>At this point I'm not wondering "What happened to the passengers?" because finding 300ish people who "want to disappear" isn't that much of a stretch compared with finding several ground staff and ATC who are sufficiently corrupt to support the airfield operations required. Once you're wheels up with the right squack and pilots who're controlling the performance to match the type they're impersonating you're golden.
]]>