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Mr. Luddite

On 4/22/2014 8:07 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 22 Apr 2014 18:15:13 -0500, Boating All Out
wrote:

In article ,
says...

They had a typhoon in that area shortly after the plane landed so
anything in the water was in a 15 hour blender and this is pretty
rough water anyway.
There is likely to be some debris washing up somewhere but it will be
meaningless in trying to identify the crash site.

If you can believe the wall to wall coverage on CNN, the satellite
data from the engine pings is the only real clue they have and that is
far from precise.
The fact that they did suddenly pick a spot and concentrate on it as
much as they have makes me believe they got a tip from some classified
source that people trust.

I am wondering if we had a sub around there somewhere that heard the
plane crash into the water and they don't want to admit it.
If Tom Clancy is even close to right, a sub can hear a fish fart 100
miles away.

Unitil they find debris they have nothing.
Unless the plane made a soft landing something will show up.
If it broke up there will be debris regardless of sea state.
Plenty of carry-on luggage will float.
It's puzzling they have not found debris, with all the searching they've
done.
Either the plane made a soft landing, or they're looking in the wrong
place, or both.
Shame for the families. Their loved ones snatched away.

It has been so long that finding debris would only confirm that the
plane landed in the water. There is still a remote possibility that it
is wadded up on the side of a mountain but then the question of why we
didn't hear an ELT becomes more valid.

The most likely scenario is it hit the water hard and went down before
the ELTs actually got going.

There is so much trash in the ocean that it might be easy to overlook
debris.

What's an "ELT"?

The big question in this tragedy is what caused the flight transponder
and apparently *all* means of communications to be cut off? There are
backups to backups on aircraft like this, designed to operate if there
is a failure in the electrical supply system in any part of the aircraft.

There must be a reason but it's hard to understand how *all* power and
means of communications was suddenly and permanently lost yet the
aircraft apparently continued to fly for several hours. The sudden
decompression theory and crew and passenger unconsciousness could
explain why voice communications was lost but it doesn't explain the
transponder. Just doesn't make any sense.