[breaking] Malaysian Airlines loses contact with Beijing-bound flight, 239 on board

There were 3 Americans on the flight as I recall.

To continue down the above line of thought, there is a huge payoff for America to be involved. First hand knowledge of terrorist activities (if any), training/testing for its search/rescue operations... but by far the biggest impact - to reinforce that is the world leader in caring about citizens, human lives, and human affairs especially as we watch Malaysia and China fumble over themselves in the media.

If the US was to find the flight recorder and be the one to release the information to the public, it would be another case of "They are so far removed yet America yet again is the only dependable nation in situations like this" rippling through China and much of Asia. This propagandist effect is huge!

That being said, the day we only think in pragmatic terms would be a sad day. Lots of people died, the US is definitely well off, and people should just care about helping in instances where other humans died.

 

BA got in trouble for this...too soon, I guess.

 

Outside of the fuel used by whatever ships/planes are searching, what exactly are the costs? I assume those are being paid by whatever country owns those ships and planes. But manpower used to provide expertise, search satellite feeds, etc just uses people who are employed already - so there's no real added cost there. You're likely talking about a pretty small amount of money in the grand scheme of things.

 

I assume in your favor that you are not an economist.

 

It's also great real world training and a very good show of international goodwill -- I'm sure as well some very powerful people at Boeing are using all of their pull to get as much US tech out there searching because they want that 777 found ASAP.

 

i'm not sure about the search, but if there's ever a recovery from deep sea it will likely cost in the hundreds of millions…..not sure who would foot that bill

 

Is Australia not concerned that their radar didn't pick up a runaway plane? New search is 650 miles off their coast. How much closer did it need to be?

I assume costs for unplanned operations like this one are built into the military budgets of the countries involved. Malaysia and Malaysian Airlines should foot the bill but I'm guessing no country will be reimbursed.

 

its just hard to believe in a post 911 world a runaway plane could be missed by so many radars especially such a large plane.

 

Well, the pilots turned off the transponder which is something I thought you couldn't do anymore after what happened on 911. You will recall that hijackers broke radio contact and turned off the transponders so those planes could not be tracked. I fail to understand why you can't outfit planes with a tamper-proof GPS device located in a part of the plane that is inaccessible that's in constant contact with satellites.

 

meh no one is going to attack us we are tight with everyone

 

They killed zyzz. But gods never die.

 

I'm curious about this also. You would assume a country like Australia would have more advanced radar capabilities than Thailand or Malaysia.

 

ehh - who's attacking australia from the southwest? A fleet of killer penguins?

 

That's true for USA, but many other smaller countries don't have the budget or manpower to constantly monitor everything. Also, absolutely nobody expected a flight that was supposed to be headed to Beijing to suddenly flow into the Indian Ocean.

 

Putin has nothing on these guys:

 

You have to remember, Aussies see the world a little differently...

 

BREAKING NEWS! They found more debris.

nvm.. it was some bag of chips and a plastic bucket

 

Turning off transponders does not turn off radar. If transponder is off and radar picks something up you scramble jets to figure out what that aircraft is.

 

We discussed this earlier but they do make things like that. There is a system that the engine manufacturers make that can send back real time information about altitude, direction, speed and other things to monitor engine performance which Malaysia Airlines turned down. Anyway the only reasons why we knew the plane kept on flying and that it went down somewhere over the Indian Ocean is that monitoring systems were still active.

The technology is already there in the planes to track them besides the transponders. It is one that Malaysia Air didn't want to pay for those and also that people hadn't thought of using the technology in that way.

 

Exactly.

Secondary radar is more for ATC and military purposes in order to achieve proper separation and flow of air traffic.