Yes I can give one.

There is a Gary Larson cartoon that shows someone sat in a plane with a window seat and right next to him is a large lever on the wall with two settings, "Wings Fall Off" and "Wings Stay On" and the bloke just can't help himself from touching the lever ...


I know I'm the same if ever they sit me next to an emergency exit, in fact I deliberately ask to be seated somewhere else now, "You mean if I pull here, twist and then push the hatch it will let me walk on the wings ?"

You can't open the doors in flight, air pressure etc.

I still don't want him sitting near the doors in case I'm on the same flight

They'd been warned on countless ocassions not to let penguins into the cockpit.

One of the pilots had been internet dating on one of the many penguin dating sites.
He tried to fight it but the lust for penguin proved too much.
He had to go towards where his love lay ... it was his downfall in more ways than one.
It will all come out ....

seems this thread is just about people taking the out of a sad event.

why have the UK company just come out with the info on the plane being lost in the indian ocean? or did they know from the start?

RIP Passengers and Crew MH370 and condolences to their families and friends. Hopefully what happened in the time it took to prove the plane crashed where it did will bring about changes to how planes are tracked wherever they are in the world.

The data analysis they have managed to do has never been tried before. It has therefore taken a huge amount of time and effort to come up with a way of tracking the approximate movements based on very little.

As I understand it, the calculations are based on minute variations in signal due to the Doppler effect from which they managed to work out in which direction, relative to the relevant satellite, the plane was going when each (hourly) ping was emitted.

Sometimes you lean back and just say "I f'kin love science"

They've been analysing the data. They knew over the weekend or just before apparently. The data needed checking and rechecking

Inmarsat looked at the Doppler effect on the signal to their satellite - the change in frequency due to the satellite's movement in orbit - and were able to predict a northerly route or a southerly route (the big arches on the news graphics) - at the time that was as accurate as it got. This had never been done before. This was passed to the Malaysian government on 12th March.

Following this their engineers carried out a more detailed analysis and came up with a much more detailed Doppler model, then compared the model with similar aircraft along similar flight paths, and found a definitive match. These results were passed to the AAIB yesterday.

Tell me you're not one of the conspiracy believers? Twitter and facebook are already telling me I'm 'sheeple' and there's some huge cover-up. But then they tell me weed can cure cancer.

3 options for me: 1 - some catastrophic event has caused massive systems damage (probably electrical, including all comms) and despite someone's attempts to turn around or programme another route, everyone was eventually incapacitated and the aircraft flew on, or 2 - someone has deliberately taken control, ascended to 45,000 feet to kill everyone, and then for some unknown reason made a few turns and flown on until the aircraft ran out of fuel, or 3 - as far-fetched as it sounds (and is), some form of cyber attack that has taken over all systems and left the crew powerless.

Going back to an earlier post - aircraft can land on autopilot. I've never forgotten being an observer on an Airtours International flight around 1998, sat in the flight deck jump seat. Apparently they have to land an auto every so often (6 months iirc) and that day was the day. So we glided gently into Manchester, only for the aircraft to tip over to starboard about 3-400 metres out by what felt like about 90 degrees, but was probably only about 15, but still even the pilots shat themselves, yelling 'right wing, right wing' before disengaging autopilot, correcting and landing manually. If they shat themselves, you can imagine what I did.

For a $10 computer upgrade per plane for something called Swift then Malaysian Airlines would have found the plane straight away, but they didn't do it, which is why we've spent 17 days not knowing the closest postion position where it went down.

anyone else got a trouser tingle from all that maths?

Also, how/why were the families notified by text of the recent announcement?!

They were sent a text to the phone which they had given the number of to the airline for the purpose of being kept informed of all developments.
The text was a good way to simultaneously notify all families as soon as they were in a position to announce the conclusions. What else would be better? Invite hundreds of families to some big meeting but attempt to give no clue why? You don't think they'd figure it? There is no good way to confirm bad news.

so they heard the news firsthand, rather than via the TV I presume.

Kind of what I said but better

the news via text message to families wasnt the only way they found out, the malaysian government said this was one of many ways of the news being communicated to them.

no one knows what happened but im thinking there has been some kind of massive malfunction and when turning round the plane they have lost conscious and just carried on till running out of fuel.

or the pilots have committed suicide/hijacked.

they will only have 2 weeks now if that to get to the black box before it loses battery and lost forever.

Or 2 years and less easy to find, like the Air France one

[urlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26721975[/url

the malaysian black box will stop sending 'pings' out after 30 days..

they found the air france one two years later, but knew the location of where the plane crashed and had debris

Well if/when they find this one they'll have time to do that. The Air France one pinged for even less time apparently yet it was still found

Pingu the penguin is already on the case.

Psst. Nobody is laughing.