Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is Missing

MwRYum

MwRYum

Major
balance said:
Apparently, the plane went way off course as said before. It's supposed to go north, but turned south.

My question is: can passenger use smartphone or manual compass to detect the unusual path of his flight? I mean, if there is an unusual course, maybe the passengers can question the pilot or crews.
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Most smartphone models now has standalone GPS receivers, but remember that was a midnight flight so that means most passangers will try to tug in and get some zzzz; turn on airplane mode for their phones (of course, that is usually still at your own accord, haven't heard of any airline zealously enforce that rule); on top of all that, GPS reception inside the cabin isn't that good, and even compound the digital compass readout. Next, as we all know most smartphone maps are online, not offline - Baidu Map has offline cache that you can download beforehand, but even they don't come with continental data bundle that you can download, Google Maps on Android platform can pre-cache an area of interest but it won't allow you to cover that big of an region...

So throw in all that, by the time passangers realized something's up and try to use the smartphone to get the bearing, even if they could get a good reading there's next to nothing they could do....though my bet would be by then the flight has already crashed anyway.

Jeff Head said:
I heard this afternoon that after the Malaysian PM's announcement, the team doing the investigation on the debris said that they had not discovered indisputable evidence of the link to MH370.

I believe it most probably is...but am still waiting for that team itself to announce it.

It sounds like the Malaysian PM perhaps was premature...again.
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The PR problem has always been victims' families utter refusal to accept the truth that MH370 is lost (as in, crashed and etc., that kind of lost), so the Malaysian government would be of no surprise to grasp on anything that's seems to solidly claim that MH370 was indeed crashed, so the rest of the due process can finally begin...
 
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balance

Junior Member
MwRYum said:
Most smartphone models now has standalone GPS receivers, but remember that was a midnight flight so that means most passangers will try to tug in and get some zzzz; turn on airplane mode for their phones (of course, that is usually still at your own accord, haven't heard of any airline zealously enforce that rule); on top of all that, GPS reception inside the cabin isn't that good, and even compound the digital compass readout. Next, as we all know most smartphone maps are online, not offline - Baidu Map has offline cache that you can download beforehand, but even they don't come with continental data bundle that you can download, Google Maps on Android platform can pre-cache an area of interest but it won't allow you to cover that big of an region...

So throw in all that, by the time passangers realized something's up and try to use the smartphone to get the bearing, even if they could get a good reading there's next to nothing they could do....though my bet would be by then the flight has already crashed anyway.

I still believe that we can use magnetic compass (manual).
Check this article.
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I plan to order one from Amazon, and hopefully, others will also do so. I know like Mirage said that it can create a cabin problem when everybody is paranoid about the direction of the flight. But if you have to die, at least, you want to prepare to die, not all of a sudden :)
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B

balance

Junior Member
I still believe that we can use magnetic compass (manual).
Check this article.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


I plan to order one from Amazon, and hopefully, others will also do so. I know like Mirage said that it can create a cabin problem when everybody is paranoid about the direction of the flight. But if you have to die, at least, you want to prepare to die, not all of a sudden :)
 
B

balance

Junior Member
delft said:
Most or all smart phones contain a flux gate compass that should work well enough, even inside an aluminium aircraft fuselage, to indicate such a huge change of direction.
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That's true. I just downloaded compass on Android, and put the smartphone in airplane mode. Guess what? It still works.

As to the worry whether flight attendant will tell us to do that, Compass from android has night mode which is super dim. I don't think anybody, except the person sitting next to you, know that.
 
kwaigonegin

kwaigonegin

Colonel
getting way off topic.. even if by some chance someone did noticed direction change does it matter? that person is no longer here.
The only way this would be remotely useful is they call someone on land and give a step by step narration of course changes, airspeed, a;titude changes etc and those are recorded... and the odds of that happening is probably non existent lol
 
Jeff Head

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
kwaigonegin said:
getting way off topic.. even if by some chance someone did noticed direction change does it matter? that person is no longer here.
The only way this would be remotely useful is they call someone on land and give a step by step narration of course changes and those are recorded... and the odds of that happening is even higher than finding the wreakage tomorrow
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Agreed.

The real news is that they are getting close nd closer to really confirming that the debris is MH370...which I believe it almost has to be.

This will allow a lot of things to occur, particularly for the families.

Final closure that they are most definitely gone. Most of us knew this for sure...but when it is your loved ones, human nature will grasp on to any hope, no matter how remote.

It will also allow the complete legal matters concerning those people to go forward where some of it may have been held up without such confirmation.

Finally, I believe it will allow them to get a better idea of where the aircraft went down...though that will most probably still be a HUGE area.
 
Jeff Head

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Perhaps not know for sure...but it is pretty clear that someone on that aircraft diverted it, turned off all sorts of equipment, and led it to its demise.

In order to turn of what was turned off...it almost had to be either a crew member, or someone with such knowledge of the aircraft who was aboard. The passenger list doe snot indicate that there was such a person...so either it was a crew, or someone who stowed away IMHO.

But unless they find it and are able to recover it and figure it out...we will never know for sure.
 
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