The pilots talked to air traffic controllers who appear to have directed the planes to “resequence,” and flight data appears to show both making a circle before landing safely.

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Tracking Down #MH370 or Physics of an Air Space Game of Marco Polo


The guessing/math triangulating the path of Inmarsat’s pings was the only thing experts seemed to agree on regarding to pinning down the location of Malaysia Airlines flight 370. Yet at the location, at least, the location according to the data laying out the path according to Inmarsat’s analysis, nothing was found in the recent search of the ocean floor off the coast of Australia. The engineers and mathematicians involved may have done their best but the guess seems to have been faulty or otherwise off somehow. If you will pardon the circular reasoning, if only we knew how it was off, we would know how it was off.

Investigators have come up with two maps that can be drawn based on the ping data, based on the speed. The variation is due to considerations of the pings which do not indicate the speed or direction the plane was moving, but only the probable distance between plane and satellite. See Inmarsat’s global representation …

Inmarsatglobe

However, there is opposition to the Inmarsat calculations which is presented by * Michael Exner (founder of the American Mobile Satellite Corporation) **Duncan Steel(physicist and visiting scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center) and satellite technology consultant ***Tim Farrar which presents other data that should be considered. See the Dopplar shift jpg…

dopplarshift

My pragmatic response to these experts is a major simplification: just that the plane did not disappear into a textbook, under textbook conditions. The pings occurred in a real atmosphere, with atmospheric variations that were not and possibly could not have been taken into account. Not only are the speed, direction and height of the aircraft factors that must be taken into account, but also the quality of the atmosphere, density, weather, etc, plus factors that a non-mathmatical, non-scientist like myself would not even know how to bring into the picture. In this search at least, the untested math used is as vulnerable as statistics is to presenting a defective or imprecise representation, or a representation which would only be true under certain conditions.

For further study on this, * Michael Exner, the Atlantic Official Explanation article, input from physicist **Duncan Steele (who calculates “a uniform ring radius based on the aircraft-satellite range given the elevation angle and the satellite’s altitude, and the latitude of the sub-satellite point, the aircraft being taken to be at the same latitude in this simplified geometry; and satellite consultant***Tim Farrar.

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1st European Air Ambulance Meeting at AERO 2010 in Friedrichshafen

REPATRIATION FOR PATIENTS

Friedrichshafen, Germany – Help often comes from the air! International aviation ambulance services are the main topic on the agenda of the 1st European Air Ambulance Meeting held in conjunction with AERO 2010. The international trade magazine 4RESCUE, which focuses on the topic of air rescue, is offering the global show for general aviation (April 8-11, 2010) in Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance a platform for exchanging information among organizations and specialists in the area of air rescue, including manufacturers and designers of all the medical equipment on board the aircraft and insurance companies. Ambulance aircraft are generally business aviation flights that have been modified for transporting patients.

“AERO Friedrichshafen is the leading European trade show for general aviation and thus the ideal platform for a European air ambulance conference,” says AERO Project Manager Thomas Grunewald. Many companies that already take part in AERO as exhibitors could also become major players and partners in the air ambulance sector, according to Grunewald. Moreover, the trade show venue in the tri-border area of Austria, Switzerland and Germany enjoys a strategic location at the heart of Europe.
In the health care sector, transporting patients back to their home countries is called repatriation. This is a service that is offered by companies, organizations, tour operators, rescue service companies, airlines and insurance providers. In most cases this concerns travelers who, for health reasons, are not able to continue their journey. As the worldwide tourist industry continues to expand, this service has rapidly gained importance and exhibited exponential growth over the past few years. Tour operators traditionally offer their customers a combination of individual insurance packages. The risk involved is generally transferred to insurance companies. Some of these firms have specialized in offering insurance packages for worldwide patient repatriations.

Details on the Air Ambulance Meeting and AERO 2010 are available at www.aero-expo.com.

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Spatial Disorientation-in the pilot, or in the head of the investigator

Donald Estell attempted to land the 21-year-old, single-engine Piper aircraft in challenging conditions, (on its second approach to St. Louis Downtown Airport in Cahokia) but instead, struck a house. The crash that ended the life of 65-year-old Estell of Clayton, Mo., and Robert Clarkson, 77, of Belleville has been attributed to pilot error by a June 27 report by the NTSB. The crash occurred on Feb 21, 2010, and it happened (according to the NTSB) because of spatial disorientation.

A pilot who loses his orientation, and whose proprioception (perception of direction) is compromised is described as suffering from spatial disorientation. Most useful for maintaining orientation is an external visual horizon, which helps maintain the sense of “up and down.”

We know that spatial disorientation is a real condition. It is also one of several “pilot error” causes that officials point to when they can not figure out why an otherwise airworthy (or supposedly airworthy) plane crashes.

There are cases rightly or wrongly attributed to spatial disorientation, for example, the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 that spiraled into the sea off Beiruit; the May 12 2010 Afriqiyah Airlines Flight 771 crash where the pilot undershot the runway on approach to Tripoli; and the July 28 2010 Airblue Flight 202 which crashed in the Margalla Hills on an ILS approach to the opposite runway 30.* There are events attributed to spatial disorientation when it may or may not be a factor, and may or may not be the only cause. Even when it does occur, it is usually in combination with something else, such as foggy weather which obliterates the horizon, radar failure, cabin pressure loss (the sudden loss of pressure can cause a pilot to lose consciousness.)

Families who have lost loved ones in airline crashes rely on investigations to determine what systems failed, and what went wrong that caused the crash. It is the solemn duty of investigators (like those in the NTSB) to sort through the wreckage, and analyze the black boxes to determine to the best of their ability what went wrong. The final report is usually the result of a year or several years of intensive study and research. It is usually the more responsible or determined investigators who do not settle for a spatial disorientation cause blaming the pilot, but who look beyond it to find the underlying factor—the radar failure, or system failure, or pressure leak or faulty automatic pilot—that instigated the disorientation.

*See Comment

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Hudson Midair Collision Lawsuit

Five wrongful death lawsuits filed in Newark US District Court over the Hudson River Collision deaths of tourists Fabio Gallazzi, Giacomo Gallazzi, Tiziana Pedroni, Filippo Norelli and Michele Norelli allege the Federal Aviation Administration’s procedures for controlling Hudson River are out dated, and that the Teterboro supervisor was “grossly negligent, reckless and wanton” in leaving work to conduct personal business on government time and failing to monitor flight traffic.

Pilot Steven Altman, who was flying the piper that collided with the helicopter was named in the suit, as well as Liberty Helicopters Inc. and the Meridian Consulting Corporation Inc. Multiple parties are held responsible.

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