Notes for Signalling Unit Log for Flight MH370 [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

Notes for Signalling Unit Log for Flight MH370 [pdf]

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52 pointsfloetic8 comments

Wondering what this is about? These are the long awaited satellite communication logs from flight MH370 with Inmarsat. Basically, the raw data that indicated the likely crash in the Indian Ocean off Australia, and thus gave an area to search. CNN has some info @ http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/27/world/asia/malaysia-missing-pl...

There have been all sorts of theories about the math and data. So we finally have the data and others can peak into it. Although, I suspect we are going to see some crazy new theories now. Here are just some of the links I found while researching the topic and what to do with this raw data:

http://www.duncansteel.com/

http://www.reddit.com/r/MH370/comments/218i36/how_the_satell...

http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2014/03/how-did-inmars...

http://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/2623/how-did-the...

It's a pity this has been released this so late. I have to wonder if they might have found MH370 by now if only they had released this within the first week of it going missing.

It's a pity the authorities have been so catastrophically incompetent in the search. Normally it would make sense to just release data to the authorities, because they'll have smart people on the case and making it public will just add noise. Nobody was expecting the response to this one to be so badly handled, and it takes a while to change your mindset in the face of that.

Extracted to a couple of CSV files (but didn't have time for the appendices): https://github.com/BigDataMalaysia/MH370_Inmarsat

Watch out for errors.

Sweet!

They have info on the aircraft for some 8 hours.

MH370 was a 777-200ER. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370

That gives it a range of 7725 nautical miles. http://www.boeing.com/boeing/commercial/777family/pf/pf_200p...

Cruise speed is 0.84 mach at 35000 feet which is around 500mph.

That's only 4000 miles of the 7000 mile range.

If this is the full log including some time on the ground it would seem like they didn't necessarily run out of fuel.

Kuala Lumpar to Beijing is about 2700 miles so I suppose they would probably carry enough fuel for the flight plus some reserve. So the fly-til-empty theory is still plausible.

You note this at the end, but just to reinforce: looking at the maximum range of the aircraft is pointless here, because airliners don't fly with full fuel unless they need to. Surplus fuel means surplus weight means you burn more fuel than you need to. They fly with what they need to get to the destination plus a margin, so a pad on top of the KL->Beijing distance is the right number to look at.

And even then it assumes that the aircraft was at or near FL350 for the duration of the flight. If its altitude didn't remain constant (or its speed), fuel consumption is going to be affected by denser air at lower altitudes. So going off the figures of KL -> Beijing, plus reserves, is the best bet for the absolute maximum range of the aircraft in question with actual travel distance potentially being less. Examining the rules for fuel reserves might be a good place to start, as illustrated in this conversation [1].

As you pointed out in one of your other comment, the way MH370 was so badly mishandled will probably dramatically affect the outcome of our ability to ever find the aircraft. Although this data is interesting, I'm not optimistic there's anything much we can do with it that hasn't already been done. I suppose it serves as public evidence that the aircraft was indeed flying for the claimed duration earlier news reports suggested. But I don't recall anyone who was in disagreement with that figure.

Conspiracists are undoubtedly quite happy to see this data, and although it's fun to consider outlandish possibilities, I wouldn't dare try my hand at speculating what the "ufologists" must believe happened.

[1] http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/tech_ops/read.main/...

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