how many charts do you guys need to run to realize that everyone on the plane suffered asphyxiation? At a high altitude, access to emergency nitrogen is low so the pilot absolutely has to drop an altitude immediately. An airplane can stay in the air for hours. The plane dived into a lot altitude to avoid radar, (at low alt a plane CAN and DOES avoid being spotted by a radar). Mobile phone data suggests the passengers' phones were still functioning after the aircraft lost contact with air traffic control (ATC) and the transponder was turned off/failed. Meaning that 9 out of 10 it's asphyxiation. asphyxiation had happened numerous times during WW2. Pilots are flying but they are dead.
I'd like to see when was this plane checked for fatigue metal.
an interview with A&P certified FAA mechanic who has worked on B777
the timeline when the copilot transmitted last message and the time when the plane vanished from the radar.
I am outruling terrorism or hijacking - no one came forward.
this is the dialogue in A&P FAA group. A&P = airframe and powerplant mechanics - basically, they keep jets in the air.
Pete 1 day ago 1 65
I am an A&P (FAA Licensed Aircraft Mechanic) mechanic and I have worked on aircraft for over 35 years. I have worked on everything from a small Cessna all the way up to the C5. I have worked on the 707,737, and the 747 so I am familiar with Boeing Aircraft.
What I find strange is I have been watching CNN's and other news stations coverage of this story and every expert that they have talked to are either former pilots or NTSB investigators.
Well let me say this. I have done 3 crash investigations in my career two of them were for the US Navy one with the FAA and NTSB. When both the NTSB investigators and the pilots wanted to know something about why this happened or why that happened they both came to the mechanic's to get the answer!
Ask yourself this who do pilots go to when they have a problem with the aircraft? It is always the mechanics, now don't get me wrong these guys that they have interviewed are very smart and knowledgeable about aircraft's on how they work and fly, but both of these experts would come to a A&P mechanic when they need to know how to fix a problem, so I do not understand why CNN and other news stations have not interviewed an experienced 777 mechanic?
This is a copy of my Facebook post on March 11th 2014.
Here is a little insight for everyone on that missing 777 aircraft as most of my friends know I am an A&P (FAA Licensed Aircraft Mechanic) and I have worked on everything from a small Cessna to the C5 including the 707, 737, 747 so I am familiar with Boeing aircraft. I have worked on aircraft since 1980 so I know a little about them by now I think.
This story about the missing aircraft is by far the strangest one I have ever heard of or seen in 35 years of working on aircraft's. The fact that it just seem-ally disappeared is well virtually impossible to happen. Here why I am saying that. On all large passenger aircraft like the 777/200ER there are the following antennas connected to their corresponding systems in the cockpit.
These are the communication and navigation system antennas:
-Weather Radar-
TCAS (traffic alert and collision avoidance system)-
ATC (air traffic control)-
GPS (global positioning system)-
VHF (very high frequency) communication-
SATCOM (satellite communication)-
ADF (automatic direction finder)-
HF (high frequency) communication-VOR (VHF omni range)-
Marker beacon-RA (radar altimeter)-
DME (distance measuring equipment)-
ILS (instrument landing system).
Now for this aircraft to just disappear the following systems would need to be either turned off by the switch that controls it in the cockpit or have the correct circuit breaker pulled for that system (This requires knowing which breaker is the right one to pull and there are 100's of them on a 777) This would need to be done at or near the same time for a 777/200ER to just disappear.
ATC, GPS, VHF, SATCOM, ADF, HF/VOR, and the DME,
So you see it is virtually impossible for an aircraft like this 777/200ER to just disappear. Even if you knew all the right switches or circuit breakers you still could not turn them off at the same time.
On the 777/200ER aircraft, the ACARS system is made up of an avionics computer called an ACARS Management Unit and a Control Display Unit. The management unit was designed to send and receive digital messages from the ground using existing VHF radios.
This is what makes this whole thing so strange. There is no evidence of a crash so far, no demands from any hijackers yet, only one crazy terrorist group claiming they took the plane (Ya Right).
What do I think? The only thing I can think of is either a sudden decompression in the flight deck that would have knock out the pilots or maybe killed them, or an APU exhaust leak through the Air conditioning system that killed the crew.
The pilots took the plane on purpose or were forced to take it. By doing this they would have purposely turned off all the navigation and communication equipment on board. The only people who would know how to do this would be other trained pilots or mechanics. Maybe someone could learn how to do this without knowing anything about aviation, but not likely.
If either one of these things happened (other than the pilots taking the plane) the plane would have been on auto pilot at 35,000 feet so it would have lost some altitude with the decompression lost, but would continue flying.
If it was an APU exhaust leak (Not likely because this requires a crack in the APU exhaust and a crack in the bleed air lines being used for the AC. I have never seen two cracks like this at the same time) the plane again would continue flying on course until it ran out of fuel.
So they need to look 100,s maybe 1000,s of miles away from where they are looking and that is why they can't find the missing plane.
This is a conversation that I had with my friend and fellow A&P mechanic Anthony. Ant and I worked together for awhile and Ant has close to 20 years of experience working on aircraft. So between the two of us we have a total of 55 years of working experience on all kinds of different airplanes.
Anthony: As a fellow aircraft mechanic I see your logic. One correction because of the increasing fuel cost ALL airlines make the pilots turn the APU off prior to takeoff and as you know no APU can be started at 35,000 feet. But you're right can't happen without SOMEONE KNOWING
Yesterday at 6:01am • Unlike • 1
Pete: @Ant Oh Ya I had forgot that (Been retired since 2011) you are right on starting the APU thanks for reminding me.
Well then the only other thing I can think of would be a carbon seal leak in one or both of the engines bleed air systems, supplying air to the ECS. These leaks are usually found pretty quickly and even if this happen my understanding is the air would not be toxic enough to kill someone. These are called Fume events in aviation, but they rarely ever happen.
So I am at a lost here to make any sense of this. It is really looking like either one or both pilots took the plane on purpose or they were forced to take it. From my experience there does not seem to be any other answer.
What do you think Ant? Did you find that ELT info? I found where it says that an ELT or ULB will ping up to a depth of 20,000 feet, but still would like to know what the manual says.
Yesterday at 10:06am • Like
Anthony: I found out that ULB's have a short life once activated. And it also depends on how new they are. Most are old units and the batteries they run off don't last for several days. They were meant to help locate a plane quickly and if that signal was never received by someone because of where the ULB's are located on the plane as you well know in an UNPRESSURIZED area there's no access to it other than from on the ground NEVER in flight. The same thing holds true for the ELT. If the c/b is pulled then the battery won't charge which mean it wouldn't emit a signal for long and I have no idea if that part of the world has equipment capable of tracking or receiving it.
The Paine Steward plane crash is the only thing that makes sense other than the pilots/whoever was flying taking it after turning off the transponder and going wherever and only transmitting on HF because not every tower has the capability of hearing those transmissions. REALLY STRANGE situation.
If the plane nose dived into the water it would have broken up. If it landed like the US Airways plane did in the Hudson smoothly in the water it could have sank after hours but wouldn't explain why no one jumped out. To many scenarios but mechanically the plane should be able to be found under normal circumstances