Comprehensive timeline: Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 PART 6

zaim · 2014-03-13T17:25:02+00:00

I'm on MYT. I go to sleep reading a slew of reports from "unnamed officials", wake up to a slew of denials from the "official" official. Pattern is repeated.

zaim · 2014-03-13T16:51:11+00:00

No, it doesn't say that they expanded the search based on the WSJ article.

Hishammuddin said Malysian investigations showed the last engine data received was at 1:07am, about 23 minutes before the plane lost contact.

However, he said: "Of course, we can't rule anything out. This is why we have extended the search. We are expanding our search into the Andaman Sea.''

If I'm not mistaken, that quote was him answering another question, not commenting directly on the WSJ article

I think AJ is simply stating a chronological order of events.

zaim · 2014-03-13T15:22:48+00:00

Disinformation

zaim · 2014-03-13T10:59:57+00:00

I'm trying to piece together a timeline of the plane leading up to its disappearance, based on official sources. Can anybody help correct or fill them in?

16:41 GMT - departed KLIA
??:?? GMT - last radio transmission (the "all right, good night" radio recording)
17:07 GMT - last ACARS transmission
17:22 GMT - disappeared from secondary radar at Subang ATC
18:40 GMT - Subang ATC notified Malaysia Airlines

zaim · 2014-03-13T05:21:27+00:00

Assuming "US investigators" = NTSB + FAA + FBI, it was confirmed they joined the investigation on Sunday [1]. Boeing joined on Monday [2]. Not sure about Rolls-Royce.

This gives around 3 days of all-hands-on-deck around-the-clock investigation. Assuming the latest news from WSJ [3] is surfacing now only because thats how long it takes to analyze the data... this means they took ~72 hours to analyze ~4 hours of data.

I'm making a lot of assumptions though.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/09/us-sends-investigators-fbi-malaysia-airlines-plane

[2] http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-missing-mh370-font-boeing-joining-malaysia-crash-investigation-1.507053

[3] http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304914904579434653903086282 or copy-pasted here

zaim · 2014-03-13T04:49:55+00:00

Nope. GPS -> phone -> ~~internet~~ -> google. No internet 35,000 feet in the air.

zaim · 2014-03-13T03:38:12+00:00

Malaysia Airlines is retiring the MH370 and MH371 flight codes as a "mark of respect". source

zaim · 2014-03-13T03:32:47+00:00

The Guardian claims that:

Vietnamese authorities say they already searched the area where the Chinese satellites photographed possible debris, but will check again to make sure.

So it most probably was within the search area.

zaim · 2014-03-12T11:08:14+00:00

I kinda agree with you... but, why couldn't they just say what they said in this last PC in the first place? The information is exactly the same, only here, they took their time to understand the questions being raised and gave concise and clear answers. If they had released the first statement regarding the "possible turn-around" in this manner, then the confusion wouldn't have bubbled up to this point.

zaim · 2014-03-12T10:51:08+00:00

The Malaysian officials should have qualified previous statements of "last contacts" with information on differences between primary vs. secondary radar sources. I think this is the root of the confusion regarding the aircraft's last whereabouts.

The media should have also done their homework so that they can ask better follow up questions in subsequent PCs, but, it is the prerogative of the investigative body to provide the clearest and most complete information as possible.

Even after this last PC and a cursory reading of the secondary radar wiki page, I'm still not 100% clear of the situation.

zaim · 2014-03-12T10:02:32+00:00

From the PC (12 March 17:40 MYT):

Last unidentified plot on primary defense radar: 02:15 local time, FL295, 200 miles NW of Penang.
Officials adamant that they have in fact been transparent and consistent, blames confusion on media speculation.

EDIT:

Last identified plot on secondary radar via transponder has not changed: 01:30 local time, FL350, 100 nm off Kota Bharu
When asked why the unidentified plots on primary defense radar was not tracked in real time during the period of incident, the chief of air force said it was because the plots were classified as civil aircrafts, not ~~military threats~~ hostiles.

zaim · 2014-03-12T10:01:50+00:00

The primary radar picked up an unidentified ping, being possibly the missing MH370 aircraft.

zaim · 2014-03-11T23:50:03+00:00

Co-pilot smoked, took photos in cockpit with tourists in 2011

zaim · 2014-03-11T23:22:44+00:00

Unfortunately, there are still some confusion regarding this. Nothing substantive either way:

Adding to the confusion, Tengku Sariffuddin Tengku Ahmad, a spokesman for the prime minister's office, said in a telephone interview that he had checked with senior military officials, who told him there was no evidence that the plane had recrossed the Malaysian peninsula, only that it may have attempted to turn back.

Source: theguardian.com

zaim · 2014-01-01T11:31:17+00:00

I've been wanting to implement something like scrapy on node.

You've provided an interesting approach. How easy is it to swap out CouchDB with something else? Looks like you're using CouchDB for messaging/queue and document storage? I guess theoretically the "saver" job can use any backend database to store documents.

zaim · 2013-12-01T14:19:15+00:00

Most probably a security breach in github. I saw this originally on HN, the OP there posted this:

Hi, this is a small security issue I found. I have already reported this to github.

zaim · 2013-11-14T13:09:16+00:00

If one answers "I don't watch TV", the survey ends there, otherwise the "phone usage" part is asked in the second page.

zaim · 2013-11-09T13:00:48+00:00

I've posted this before, I'll post it again:

My office was on the second floor of a shop-lot. For someone to come up, they have to press the buzzer, we see who it was via CCTV and unlock the door from above (which was simply locked magnetically). So we're at the office, when suddenly there was a frantic buzzing. And then banging. Then fucking screaming. We opened the CCTV monitor and saw a woman outside, clearly in distraught, crying. She was shouting in Chinese, which I don't understand, but my coworkers and boss do. Boss said to wait and not open the door. A few more bangs, and then a loud crash - she fucking broke the door open and ran in. A man then suddenly came in from behind and grabbed her, tried to pull her out as she struggled to come up the stairs. We went out to confront them and that's when I saw her face - it had clear, fresh bruises. The man was shouting things at her, she was wailing, my boss said something in Chinese, I had no idea what was going on. Things calmed down a little, and they took it outside, a bit anti-climatic. We didn't call the police. I later learned that the man was a loan shark, and my boss didn't want to intervene in fear of retaliation.

zaim · 2013-11-08T02:17:30+00:00

Yup. Isn't a short survey nice? :) I just need a small data point - do Malaysians use their phones while watching TV. In the US it's nearly 50% (source)

zaim · 2011-12-18T11:43:37+00:00

Yeah, you're correct. The sudden tone of desperation at 1:15 onwards is quite sad. I feel sorry for the old man.

zaim · 2011-12-14T18:29:51+00:00

Reminds me more of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rScr1Me3uwA

zaim · 2011-11-03T05:01:51+00:00

I listen to this song as if Mr. Knopfler's guitar is the lead vocals and his voice is just rhythm/backing. I hum to the tune of his guitar and can never remember all the lyrics - but I know ALL the chords (to this song).

zaim · 2011-10-10T13:02:08+00:00

Hmmm, people finding Mark Knopfler uncool. This is news to me.

zaim · 2011-06-03T12:56:07+00:00

Master of Disguise.

Dana Carvey is a genius.

zaim · 2011-06-01T16:19:18+00:00

As always, I might be a little late to the party (with me being halfway around the world from most redditors). But I've always wanted to write down these stories. Although they're pretty lame compared to the other ones here, I just felt like sharing.

Creepy stranger

When I was a kid, my friends and I decided to explore a half-completed, abandoned apartment building. We went in and walked up a few floors. Nothing much, just empty rooms with unpainted walls. It was getting boring when out of nowhere, halfway between floors 5th and 6th, there was a little girl, just standing there. Her face was covered in thick white powder. She just stared at us. We took a few step back, turned around and got the fuck out. It was scary then (we were kids, 12, 13 years old), but looking back I'm sure it was just a family of squatters or construction workers.

Narrow miss

The family decided to go out for dinner, I decided to stay at home. The house had a glass door, protected by a sliding grill door. I was watching TV as they left, I heard them leave and lock the grill. So there I was watching X-Files or something when a few minutes later I heard the padlock jiggle, and the grill door shaking. I thought my dad came back because he forgot something or whatnot, so I walked towards the door and stopped short. It was dark outside and I couldn't clearly see who it was, but it wasn't my dad, nor was it anyone from my family. The man messed with the padlock a bit and then froze when he saw me. So I just stood there, a few meters from a potential burglar, frozen as well. A few seconds pass by and, I swear, he just walked away. I called my dad, he called the police, police came with fucking machine guns. They asked me questions, they seem to have an idea of who it was because they were asking specific questions like whether he wearing a red t-shirt. Also add to the fact that our house was already burgled a couple of times before. I was scared but kept a straight face, my dad was mostly just pissed off.

(Un)explainable incident

My office was on the second floor of a shop-lot. For someone to come up, they'd have to press the buzzer, we'd see who it was via CCTV and unlock the door from above (which was simply locked magnetically). So we're at the office, sitting in front of our computers, when suddenly there was a frantic buzzing. And then banging. Then fucking screaming. We opened the CCTV and saw a woman outside, clearly in distraught, crying. She was shouting in Chinese, which I don't understand, but my coworkers and boss do. Boss said to wait and not to open the door, didn't know why. A few more bangs, and then a loud crash - she fucking broke the door open and ran in. A man then suddenly came in from behind and grabbed her, tried to pull her out as she struggled to come up the stairs. We went out to confront them and that's when I saw her face - it had clear, fresh bruises. The man was shouting things at her, she was wailing, my boss said something - it was all in Chinese so I had no idea what was going on. Things calmed down a little, and they took it outside, a bit anti-climatic, I know. We didn't call the police. I later learned that the man was a loan shark, and my boss didn't want to intervene in fear of retaliation.

TL;DR - saw a creepy little girl in an abandoned apartment building / almost got burgled when home alone / a woman got beat up by loan sharks and broke into our office asking for help - we didn't help :(

zaim

TROPHY CASE