UPDATED 5/21/16: Egyptian authorities have released photos of MS804 debris recovered from the ocean. Here’s a cropped version of one of them:
The size, the shape of the edges, the amount of exposed honeycomb and even the presence of fasteners is quite reminiscent of MH370 debris found in the western Indian Ocean, especially “No Step.” Of course, marine fouling is absent.
UPDATE 5/20/16: CNN has posted a screengrab showing ACARS error messages just before MS804 crashed:
As you can see in the diagram below, there is a lavatory directly behind the captain’s seat. If there is thick smoke in there, it could penetrate down into the avionics bay below:
Gerry Soejatman points out: “It appears that aircraft may have had an in-flight fire and if so, the aircraft maneuvers could be due to Smoke Removal Emergency Procedures, which involves descending the aircraft to 10,000 feet and also opening the cockpit window.”
A reader interprets the ACARS messages:
00:26 ANT-ICE R WINDOW; a fault is in either the right sliding window or fixed window (not the windshield).
00:26 R SLIDING WINDOW SENSOR; the right window heat control unit detects a problem with the sliding window sensor circuit.
00:26 SMOKE LAVATORY SMOKE; smoke detected in the lavatory.
00:27 AVIONICS SMOKE; smoke is detected in the Avionics bay.
00:28 R FIXED WINDOW SENSOR; the right window heat control unit detects a problem with the fixed window sensor circuit.
00:29 AUTO FLT FCU 2 FAULT; autopilot flight control unit (Mode control panel) channel 2 is faulted. Channel 1 still OK so no big deal.
00:29 F/CTL SEC 3 FAULT; the number 3 spoiler elevator computer is faulted. Number 1 and 2 still OK.If a bomb has gone off near the forward toilet the blast may have damaged the right window heating somehow. There would be a short delay until the toilet smoke detector goes off.
ORIGINAL POST, 5/19/2016:
At timing of writing, 6.15am Eastern Daylight Time, Egyptian and Greek military boats and planes are still hunting for a missing airliner, Egyptair Flight 804, which disappeared over the Mediterranean Sea at approximately 2.30am local time. The plane was three and a half hours into a scheduled flight from Paris, France to Cairo, Egypt.
Airbus has put out a statement which reads, in part:
The aircraft involved, registered under SU-GCC was MSN (Manufacturer Serial Number) 2088 delivered to Egyptair from the production line in November 2003. The aircraft had accumulated approximately 48,000 flight hours. It was powered by IAE engines. At this time no further factual information is available.
Here’s a screenshot of the ADS-B data reported by FlightAware. Note that this data is considered highly unreliable–but at the moment it’s all I’ve got:
Open in a separate tab to see full resolution. Note that the disappearance is sudden — the ADS-B doesn’t show any descent profile. This would be consistent with a catastrophic loss of electrical power (as perhaps due do a bomb or missile strike) or to someone deliberately turning off the electronic forms of communication, as was done in MH370. Below is a plot of the plane’s last known location.
Worth pointing out that the weather at the time was fair, suggesting that the incident was not weather-related, like AirAsia 8501 or Air France 447. I find it interesting that the disappearance took place right after the plane crossed from one Flight Information Region (FIR) to another–that is to say, when transferring from one air traffic control zone to another. MH370 disappeared under similar circumstances (also in fair weather in the middle of the night.) I would be very interested to see the ATC transcripts–in particular, to know if the plane signed off with the Greek controllers and failed to contact Egyptian ones.
The Mediterranean is a heavily-traveled body of water, both by sea and by air. It is heavily monitored. One can only presume that at the time it vanished from secondary radar screens it was being tracked by primary (military) radar as well. What’s more, based on historical precedent, when planes get into trouble at altitude like this, they tend to come down very close to their last known position. At the exact moment I write this, no debris has been found, but given the good weather conditions and the very small area to search, we should expect wreckage to start turning up very soon.
The Independent notes, “In March, an EgyptAir plane flying from Alexandria to Cairo was hijacked and forced to land in Cyprus by a man wearing what authorities said was a fake suicide belt. He was arrested after giving himself up.” In air crash circles, the name Egyptair is synonymous with EgyptAir 900, which crashed off Nantucket when one of the junior pilots deliberately steered into the ocean. At this point, both terror and suicide remain possible causes in the current incident.
UPDATE 7am EDT: The Guardian has just published this timeline, put out by Greece’s civil aviation department:
02:24: EgyptAir flight 804 from Paris to Cairo enters Greek airspace, air traffic controller permissions it for the remainder of its course.
02:48: The flight is transferred to the next air traffic control sector and is cleared for exit from Greek airspace. “The pilot was in good spirits and thanked the controller in Greek.”
03:27: Athens air traffic control tries to contact the aircraft to convey information on the switch of communications and control from Athens to Cairo air traffic. In spite of repeated calls, the aircraft does not respond, whereupon the air traffic controller calls the distress frequency, without a response from the aircraft.
03:29: It is above the exit point (from Greek airspace).
03:29:40: The aircraft signal is lost, approximately 7 nautical miles south/southeast of the KUMBI point, within Cairo FIR.
Immediately the assistance of radars of the Hellenic Air Force is requested to detect the target, without result.03:45: The processes of search and rescue are initiated, simultaneously informing the Flight Information Region of Cairo.
It seems, then, that unlike MH370, the flight crew here did not sign off with ATC before leaving their airspace.
On April 5, 2014, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reports that on the previous day the patrol vessel Haixun 01 detected a “pulse signal” at 37.5 kilohertz — the same frequency emitted by flight data recorders aboard the missing plane — in the SIO. The acoustic pulses were detected just before the batteries of the data recorders were expected to expire. China also reported seeing white objects floating in the sea in the area. None of these objects were recovered.
Most experts quickly dismissed the validity of the signal for a number of reasons, including only one of the two flight recorders was heard, the listening equipment was primitive, and the signals were not recorded.
As there were no recordings, our confidence that the acoustic pings were authentic is related to our confidence in the integrity and competency of the Chinese search team.
Ge Rijn,
I think you are confusing Haixun 01 with HMS Echo (self-detection) and Ocean Shield (likely detection of mammals at lower frequency). To my knowledge 37.5 kHz pingers are not used by biologists – please correct me if I am wrong.
ATSB has reported that Chinese used Benthos detector, which is certified up to 2 km depth. All this stuff is described in ATSB June 2014 report.
Victor,
Haixun 01 is also mentioned in ATSB June 2014 report.
On the one hand we have chasing mammals and self-detection with the state-of-the-art equipment. On the other hand – detection of the signal using primitive handheld hydrophone at the 2x distance compared to what it is designed for. If the former area was searched, why the location of Haixun ping is ignored? Scanning 100 km^2 would be sufficient given that the pinger could not be far away from the place where the signal was detected.
@Oleksandr: As I implied in my last post, since the Chinese acoustic pings were ignored, the ATSB must not have a high level of confidence in the integrity and competency of the Chinese search team, especially since the HMS Echo subsequently detected nothing in the same area. Or, the ATSB is corrupt. Those seems to be the only options.
Does anybody else think that the fabric shown in the above photograph, as well as the pale blue fabric in the video linked to earlier, look as though they have melted somewhat?
If there turns out to be heat damage to other debris, we know it cannot have come from a post-impact fire.
@Oleksandr
You have obviously the better details so I will not correct you.
I only remeber they also came up with saltlayer diversions etc. to explain those frequency differences and/or strange location messurements.
And those pingers were allready on their limit or over it, also regarding news later that one of them had been expired over date.
One maybe can hope that if the Chinese are going to conduct their own search effort later, they are going to take those own messured ping-signals seriously and go back to that area to sonarscan it.
@Susie
Hard to tell but interesting thought.
For imo it should be possible to detect smoke particles in those fabrics and defining their chemistry that could answer your question with the same conclusion.
I guess the investigators will look at this closely.
I’ve just checked on the AVH article and noticed the wording has changed to this:
‘…the transponder signals of the aircraft ceased at 02:33L (00:33Z) and according to primary radar data provided by Greece’s Ministry of Defense the aircraft tracked on its course at FL370 until 00:37Z, then flew a left hand turn of 90 degrees, started a descent doing a right hand orbit until reaching 15,000 feet and disappeared out of radar reach at 10,000 feet. No distress call was received. The aircraft was located crashed in the Mediterranean Sea, there were no survivors.’
I noticed on the day it disappeared that it appeared to come very close to a UAE flight at 00:37. I took a screen shot of this from FR24 playback but am not sure how to link to it here.
I did mention it on a different forum,(beginning with P) on the first page of the thread there but it was looked at and decided that contact had been lost at around 00:29, so the continuing flight path was purely extrapolation by FR receivers.
My comments were thence deleted.
Is this worth revisiting?
I don’t know if this will work – it’s my album on the other site:
http://www.pprune.org/members/429285-susier-albums-msr804-picture310-msruae.jpg
http://www.pprune.org/members/429285-susier-albums-msr804-picture308-uae194.jpg
Other photo showing time
Also it could be that UAE was in the wrong place on FR. Planes can jump around.
Just the time involved rang a bell – I recall thinking at the time, FL370, 0037, those numbers are a disaster.
But it’s probably the case that there is a mistake on the playback. As you said Jeff, it can’t be relied upon.
Do i understand correctly, that the current ATSB search area, includes neither Inmarsat’s first suggested flight path, “high and fast” towards 40S, nor their revised suggested flight path, towards 33S 93E, north of Broken Ridge, famous from the JON article ?
So all the major parts could as yet reside at one or the other of the Inmarsat-advised locations, outside of the current priority search area ?
Tangentially relatedly, IF the a/c actually attempted a landing at Banda Aceh but aborted b/c of “cabin disintegrating”, then some parts of the a/c could have detached and dropped into the ocean near Maimun Saleh airport, over which one must fly en route to Banda Aceh. Perhaps heavier metal aluminum fuselage panels could still be located there ??
There was a short in the front-right galley (maybe meal heater, water heater or coffee machine).
A fire developed, the consequences of the heat were detected by the right front window sensors just behind the galley/cockpit wall, then the smoke was detected by the front left lavatory sensor. The electrical fire rapidely descended into the avionics bays and was detected by the sensor.
The pilots did exactly what they are trained to: descend to FL140 asap to be able to depressurize to starve the fire of oxygen and then go lower as soon as the fire is out to avoid suffocating the passengers. Or they simply followed the smoke removal procedure which would be to go to Fl100 and open the copckpit window. But the fire got to an essential part in the avionics bay too fast, leaving the pilots with no means to maneuver the plane.
The remedy will be to better insulate the avionics bay from fires at the front of the airplane, i.e. close to the avionics bay.
In a mystery like this, I would look at who contributed openly and honestly to finding the a/c and who withheld and obfuscated information. Not everyone wants to find the aircraft because it may point to a motive. And that motive may result in unpleasant consequences. So who are the obfuscators and what are they obfuscating?
Is there a reason this article has disappeared?
http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/mystery-australian-team-to-work-with-china-in-new-search-for-mh370/news-story/00db0b9cc5770502fdffe0acad55c974
Re: MS804
I thought the Sunday news “leaks” about further pilot communications with the Egyptian control tower were important…is this verified or not true?
@Susie @Jeff Wise
This updates on the AVH puts the timeline upside down again imo.
For it says the last (radar) contact was not at 3:29:40 but at around 3:39. The first time Jeff first stated in his timeline.
The confusion around secundaire and primary radar data grows for me.
Was the plane flying for another 12 minutes after those first ACARS alarms and the no sign off of the pilots?
Regarding this AVH update it did.
Very conflicting and confusing information imo. Also according the statement there was no further contact with the pilots during that time by Egyptian officials against claims there was from France media.
It starts to look like a rehearsel of the confusion and conflicting info around MH370 in its early days after it disappeared.
Frustrating.
@TBill
Egypt denies it, but the Daily Mail continues to carry the story, On a sensationalist page with every possible connection from UFO’s to Morsi’s arrest a couple of years ago.
I’m a little embarrassed to pass along the url, but here it is for the story:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/egypt/index.html
I did find the original story on the French TV station (M6) Yahoo page. it’s genuine. About the same as the Daily Mail version with a little less shouting, and French only.
Cheers
@Milhouse: Unfortunately, the MH370 fuster cluck has shown that it’s not hard to plant a story in the news anonymously. I don’t know much about French TV M6, but the Daily Mail had a string of stories about MH370 that were dead wrong. If somebody has audio recordings of a distress radio call for MS804, they should release them. My guess is that is not going to happen.
@matty “A Chinese search? ……..Where would they be searching exactly once the 120k is covered?”
In March 2014 the Chinese searched the sea near Christmas Island which was an unusual area to go to in the first two weeks after the disappearance and which one would imagine had been triggered by some evidence or disclosure.
With nothing turning up in the Southern Indian Ocean it is possible they will return to the area near Sumatra and complete a more extensive search.
My contact was one of a handful of people aware early on of details of the meetings Shah had in the days before the flight.
It is highly possible the Chinese are also aware of these meetings.
A flightplan based on details of these meetings gives an exact fit with the ping rings and waypoints with straight paths and constant speed round below Sumatra.
This is quite extraordinary when you think about it.
This is just the sort of information that would encourage the Chinese to renew the search close to the coast of Java near the 7th arc.
Apologies if this is a repetition.
20 may 2016 From: https://aviationvoice.com/egyptair-flight-ms804-to-cairo-disappears-from-radar-201605201040/
Mike Vivian, former head of operations at the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority, thought the plane’s sudden swerves before dropping off radar were more likely to be caused by human interference than by a bomb.
“It looks highly unlikely that this was consistent with some sort of explosive device,” he said. “One’s inclined to go towards the theory that there had been some interference in the aircraft and on the flight deck, with the control of the aircraft.”
-Is it probable that if communication occurred after 02:48 then Vivian has heard or read a transcript of it?
@Bardy, Each of your sentences should have been preceded by the words, “What if,” “I think that maybe…” “It’s not implausible that…” or somesuch.
@Freddie, Funnily enough, a couple of us were just discussing why someone might make up erroneous information about a missing plane. Perhaps you could enlighten us about what your creative process is like.
Once again, getting a straight story about what happened is impossible.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36365256
“EgyptAir: Crashed flight MS804 ‘did not swerve'”
Ehab Azmy, the head of Egypt’s state-run provider of air navigation services, told Associated Press the plane had been flying at its normal height of 37,000ft (11,280m) before dropping off the radar. Some debris has since been found.
“That fact degrades what the Greeks are saying about the aircraft suddenly losing altitude before it vanished from radar,” he said.
@Nederland
@All
The News.com.au article about a Chinese search being assisted by an Australian team, is back on the net.
The news.com.au item reports that the China Rescue and Salvage Bureau is to use the vessel Nan Hai Jiu 102 (currently in Singapore while being equipped with deep tow multibeam and sidescan sonar) to search for MH370, apparently starting in June, assisted by an Australian team. Darren Chester was asked about this, but declined to comment.
There is a tripartite Ministers meeting planned for July, prior to the completion of the current ATSB search.
That’s the gist of it.
Now they are saying it did not swerve at all! This is getting very interesting!
“An EgyptAir flight that crashed in the Mediterranean did not swerve and change direction before disappearing, an Egyptian official says.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36365256
There were some news reports about an alleged hacking into the Malaysian department of civil aviation and MAS the day after the disapperance, That could allegedly be tracked to a Chinese IP.
A day later a video of the surveillance camera was posted on youtube.
The Telegraph published the preliminary ATC transcript on 21 March 2014, which was translated from Chinese to English. It still included the last radio message “Alright good night”, which was later amended.
I’m concerned that the Chinese will claim sonar evidence on the bottom in the SIO, then hold it tight, then go home.
Oleksandr – certainly not lost on me that the drift modeling puts the plane back where the ping thing occurred. Has it even been stated why they were there at all? An electronic stone throw away from a sophisticated sub communication base – NW Cape.
The new article on news.au by Marnie O’Neill implies that China will continue to search for MH370 after the Australians conclude in August.
Marnie has just tweeted that Steen Frejo, the Managing Director of McArtney Asia Pac, told her from Singapore that China’s search will begin after the ATSB search ends, with the understanding that there may be some overlap. This is very big news.
The next big question is where will the Chinese search? Marnie says she is working to answer that question.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/mystery-australian-team-to-work-with-china-in-new-search-for-mh370/news-story/00db0b9cc5770502fdffe0acad55c974
@sk999: There inexplicably seems to be some confusion between the SSR data reported by Egypt and the PSR data reported by Greece. It would be helpful if Egypt revealed what their military radar saw, if anything.
Nederland: I have been keeping a list of patterns of Chinese behavior in this incident. You might be interested in it:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qdg1jcnc7nfxahp/2016-05-18%20China%20and%20MH370.pdf?dl=0
The BBC report re the comments by the Egyptian official that the aircraft did not ‘swerve’ (it is difficult to imagine an aircraft swerving, anyway) is perhaps indicative of a catastrophic failure at altitude with the ACARS and flight trajectory data being the product of the aircraft disintigrating as it plummeted to the sea.
At the moment, it seems that there is quite a bit riding on the veracity of the M6 French TV report, as the other media outlets that ran with the story have yet to produce/cite independent verification. It’s interesting to be focused on a particular story and pick up on the various elements of conflicting information produced by various media channels. Is some information intentionally planted, or is it simply erroneous and rather the product of a shortened, digital news cycle? As for social media, it is clear that we now also need to tend with information hackers who like to spread disinformation simply for the sport of it.
@Matty There are certain geopolitical upsides to the Chinese anchoring a renewed search. The Chinese navy is generally excluded from most strategic ports for starters; the tactical work of the search then feeds into a larger strategic relational systems frame of the PRC-Australia-Malaysia-US. Meanwhile, a “successful” search could prove a boon to the makers of the domestic messaging back in Beijing.
So, it looks like either there was a distress call and attempts at maintaining some semblance of normal flight dynamics; or there was neither, with the data at hand only representative of the rather forlorn calls of a dying machine.
In terms of perps, I guess that in addition to the usual Jihadi menu, we could add the Muslim Brotherhood, given the reports of graffiti (“we will bring this plane down”) having been found on the aircraft two years ago. The grafitti (as you have most likely read) was found in the course of a reported purge of some 70 ground staff at Charles de Gaulle; one could imagine Egyptian intelligence cooperating with the French in identifying ground staff with links to the Brotherhood, thus perhaps providing a motive to the supposed bomber(s).
@Victorl Big news indeed. I only hope that it was not my call yesterday to Steen Frejo that has HIM thinking that the Chinese are assuming control of the search. Regardless, I’m going to call him now to ensure that he does not mind the added attention.
@Victorl I just got off the phone with Steen. It would appear that Marnie is ahead of the curve versus Steen in terms of chasing down who would be heading up any China-led search. It would be great if you could keep us posted on her tweets.
BTW, it was great to see Marnie using a baseball metaphor – “stepping up to the plate”- in Australia.
@matty – further to the Chinese search resuming just to the South of Java –
As I understand it the flightplan mentioned in my previous posting was not difficult to recreate from what became known soon after the plane went missing.
The intention was to land at Banda Aceh once confirmation was received a deal had been done.
Shah would loiter while waiting, they were confident a deal would happen quickly.
In the unlikely event he heard nothing he would come round below Sumatra to be heading in a similar direction to an approach to Beijing as daylight approached.
Cocos Islands to Christmas Island on to Bandung airfield in Java was discussed in the days before the flight.
However a major mistake appears to be loitering too long near Banda Aceh which fairly obviously lead to the running out of fuel and coming down in the sea off Java apparently only some 80nm or so from the airfield if the ping rings are accurate.
Very bizarre news item, probably unrelated to MS804:
Turkish pilots saw unidentified aircraft? flying overhead near Istanbul about an hour before MS804 went down
http://www.news.com.au/world/egyptair-ms804-pilots-saw-ufo-with-green-flashing-lights-shortly-before-tragic-plane-crash/news-story/2e55b4315a87f8ca921fe16c974688bc
If there is any truth in this story (which I doubt) – perhaps a military aircraft or drone?
@AM2
It’s on many news sites also Turkisch.
Seems genuine pilots conversation on this youtube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G91ygWQpbLI
But doubtfull for it’s not in englisch.
Conversation between pilots and ATC should be in englisch I suppose?
Sky News has an interesting MS804 report tonight titled “Was there smoke on MS804?”
It discusses the last few minutes of the plane’s flight, in context of the ACARS data, and the planes final descent.
The ACARS data is displayed graphically in 3d animation: window-sensor and smoke detector alerts, with some interpretation.
Simultaneously, in a flight simulator, a reporter sits beside a ‘real’ pilot who takes the simulator through the maneuvers MS804’s pilot would have done after leaving his cruise altitude.
The sequence begins with the pilot putting on a oxygen mask. He then dials-in the altitude changes and the known heading changes: 90 degrees left followed by 380 degrees back around. “We know he did this”, the pilot says. These maneuvers are intended to more quickly get the plane down to a ‘safe’ altitude where the passengers could breathe normally.
The pilot describes these maneuvers as ‘normal’ when attempting to quickly lose altitude.
It’s s relatively short report which puts together all the we know about the plane’s last few minutes. The only mention of a ‘distress call’ is that there was none.
MS804’s pilot seems to be dealing with loss of cabin pressure and, presumably, spreading smoke, and possibly fire.
Imagining these events, from discovery of smoke or fire, decision and presumably preparing the passengers for the coming flight maneuvers, and initiating the descent, it’s no surprise the pilot was not in radio contact. The surprise, if any, is that the M6 report appears to be a fabrication.
@Ge Rijn
I don’t know which language(s) are used in conversations between pilots and ATC. My concern is the mention of “UFO” and “green flashing lights” … surely pilots would recognise whether they had seen an aircraft or not? Or perhaps they said unidentified plane and it got translated to UFO. So I remain very sceptical of the relevance of this story at this stage, especially with so many contradictory reports being published.
Background to this link: Walid Shoebat was a Palestinian terrorist in the 70’s who became a Christian and now runs a zealous anti Islam website. Some have claimed his terror links are trumped up but he has won that argument pretty convincingly with documents to prove it.
Very interesting stuff about Shah and Ibrahim and the Muslim Brotherhood. Walid Shoebat has encyclopedic knowledge about Jihadism and theology in general.
http://shoebat.com/2016/05/22/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-muslim-kamikaze-egyptairs-flight-804-pilot-and-why-he-drowned-the-plane-in-the-sea/
@Matty,
Interesting link however the standpoint seems to be that every recent (at least) aviation accident was a deliberate act by a muslim pilot, rather than, well, an accident.
It seems to be about proving that they were all deliberately flown into the sea.
I can’t really find much sympathy for a view such as that.
Also his advertisement for $20 a month subscription, meaning you get to speak with him on the blower, is dubious to say the least.
No offence intended.
Another link with some troubling photo’s
http://shoebat.com/2016/05/21/breaking-muslim-pilot-of-flight-804-converted-the-plane-into-a-portable-mosque-and-said-farewell-before-he-crashed-the-plane-and-slaughtered-everyone/
Is Obama tip-toeing around the Islamist factor with MH370?
@Freddie
I’d love to hear more on your take about path towards Christmas Island diagrams and data usage would be nice if you can.
@Matty
I for one am very glad to see the Chinese (apparently/hopefully) step up to the plate
on the MH370.
My biggest fear all along was that the search would be called off before the plane was found.
‘At 24/0920 UTC Aljazerra TV reported that Egyptian authorities have advised that signs of explosive contaminants have been detected on body parts and debris so far recovered.’
-not sure if this is true, I had a browser problem on the Aljazerra site.
Can anyone else confirm/deny?
@Jeff & All
I’m not sure if this is old news, please excuse me if it is, but NBC are carrying a news story about the RR piece.
Retired Dr Schalk Luckhoff says he found the piece encrusted with barnacles (he called them mussels) and took the photo but left the item on the beach, because it smelt badly of rotting mussels.
Understandable enough, I suppose.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/05/egyptair-human-remains-point-board-explosion-160524092617476.html
‘An Egyptian forensic official has said that human remains retrieved from the EgyptAir 804 crash site point to an explosion on board, reports say.’
-but there is no mention of ‘explosive contaminants’