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jdsully

How is it we have such precise satellite location data on these crashes - but MH370 can just disappear.

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Today's precise satellite location data is in part a response to MH370's disappearance:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34793274

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mh370-how-can-we-stop-losing-ai...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rmark/2019/03/04/five-years-mal...

The Iridium Next satellite constellation is new. SpaceX just launched the final 10 satellites in January 2019. Even if MH370 had their transponders turned on, it wouldn't have helped.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/14/iridium-aireon-satellites-ga...

It was my understanding that all/most/all-controllable radios were shutoff at some point. There was some maintenance data from the engines that factored into the search location, but otherwise it wasn't transmitting anything.

I havn't followed very closely, so take that with salt, but it's a starting place if anything.

A flight data recorder provides a lot of information. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_recorder

We could stream this information via satellite uplink. Instead Radar and transponders is used to keep a close enough location to make recovery generally strait forward.

It’s really turning off the transponder while over the middle of the ocean that’s the issue for MH370.

It's my understanding from various reporting I've heard on this subject that the location data that is the subject of the OP is in fact data that is reported live via satellite comms, not data that has been retrieved from the FDR.

I am talking about a difference in resolution.

Locating a crash within 5 miles makes recovery of the FDR strait forward. A location update every 30 seconds easily provides that and looks like a lot of data. But, to really reconstruct a crash you need a lot more data including control surfaces etc, which is where the FDR comes in.

Didn't you read the part about the transponder being switched off?

My understanding is this was more precise data than ADS-B. Perhaps I’m wrong - I’m legitimately asking.

Please see the "In Comments" section of https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Writing "The transponder was switched off" would contribute the same substance to the conversation but without the insinuation.

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