Thursday, June 26, 2014

Likely cause of death for Malaysian flight: Suffocation of passengers and pilots

This makes complete sense from everything I have read. When the plane exceeded 45,000 feet the plane lost air pressure either slowly or quickly. Within minutes everyone on board would have frozen to death while not being able to breath. It could have been as quick as about 20 seconds to one minute. Slightly longer for the pilots because they have better oxygen masks than the passengers. However, above 45,000 feet they might have immediately died too because no passenger plane is designed to stay airtight above that altitude. The likely cause was a faulty autopilot and no one noticing the altimeter rising for whatever reason. So, once everyone died on board the autopilot flew the plane until engines started to fail from lack of fuel. The autopilots are designed to shut off when engines fail in order to make the pilots be aware that engines have died and the plane is crashing.

Here are average temperature tables at this altitude

U.S Standard Atmosphere Air Properties in Imperial (BG) Units

Geo potential Altitude above Sea Level
- h -
(ft)
Temperature
- t -
(oF)
Acceleration of Gravity
- g -
(ft/s2)
Absolute Pressure
- p -
(lb/in2)
Density
- ρ -
(10-4 slugs/ft3)
Dynamic Viscosity
- μ -
(
10-7 lb.s/ft2)
-5000 76.84 32.189 17.554 27.45 3.836
0 59 32.174 14.696 23.77 3.737
5000 41.17 32.159 12.228 20.48 3.637
10000 23.36 32.143 10.108 17.56 3.534
15000 5.55 32.128 8.297 14.96 3.430
20000 -12.26 32.112 6.759 12.67 3.324
25000 -30.05 32.097 5.461 10.66 3.217
30000 -47.83 32.082 4.373 8.91 3.107
35000 -65.61 32.066 3.468 7.38 2.995
40000 -69.70 32.051 2.730 5.87 2.969
45000 -69.70 32.036 2.149 4.62 2.969end quote from:http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/standard-atmosphere-d_604.html

So, the average temperature at this altitude is minus almost 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Without proper eskimo or other attire everyone would be dead almost immediately. Then on top of that the average air pressure is 14.696  at sea level but at 45,000 feet it is only 2.149.  So, there is approximately 7 times the air pressure at sea level as at 45,000 feet in altitude. So, likely there literally isn't even enough air to breathe at all at this altitude. So, maybe 20 seconds to 1 minute and everyone would be gone either from lack of oxygen or from freezing to death or both at the same time. This would include the pilots too.

begin quote:

Cause of death for MH370 passengers pinpointed

Those aboard the ill-fated flight likely suffocated, and the jet coasted into the ocean on autopilot, officials say.  New search area » 

Malaysia jet passengers likely suffocated, Australia says

Reuters


Handout of crew aboard the Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield moving the U.S. Navy's Bluefin-21 into position for deployment, in the southern Indian Ocean to look for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370
.
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Crew aboard the Australian Defence Vessel Ocean Shield move the U.S. Navy's Bluefin-21 autonomous …
The passengers and crew of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 most likely died from suffocation and coasted lifelessly into the ocean on autopilot, a new report released by Australian officials on Thursday said.
In a 55-page report, the Australian Transport Safety Board outlined how investigators had arrived at this conclusion after comparing the conditions on the flight with previous disasters, although it contained no new evidence from within the jetliner.
The report narrowed down the possible final resting place from thousands of possible routes, while noting the absence of communications and the steady flight path and a number of other key abnormalities in the course of the ill-fated flight.
"Given these observations, the final stages of the unresponsive crew/hypoxia event type appeared to best fit the available evidence for the final period of MH370's flight when it was heading in a generally southerly direction," the ATSB report said.
All of that suggested that the plane most likely crashed farther south into the Indian Ocean than previously thought, Australian officials also said, leading them to announce a shift farther south within the prior search area.
The new analysis comes more than 100 days after the Boeing 777, carrying 239 passengers and crew, disappeared on March 8 shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing.
Investigators say what little evidence they have to work with suggests the plane was deliberately diverted thousands of kilometers from its scheduled route before eventually plunging into the Indian Ocean.
The search was narrowed in April after a series of acoustic pings thought to be from the plane's black box recorders were heard along a final arc where analysis of satellite data put its last location.
But a month later, officials conceded the wreckage was not in that concentrated area, some 1,600 km (1,000 miles) off the northwest coast of Australia, and the search area would have to be expanded.
"The new priority area is still focused on the seventh arc, where the aircraft last communicated with satellite. We are now shifting our attention to an area further south along the arc," Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss told reporters in Canberra.
Truss said the area was determined after a review of satellite data, early radar information and aircraft performance limits after the plane diverted across the Malaysian peninsula and headed south into one of the remotest areas of the planet.
"It is highly, highly likely that the aircraft was on autopilot otherwise it could not have followed the orderly path that has been identified through the satellite sightings," Truss said.
The next phase of the search is expected to start in August and take a year, covering some 60,000 sq km at a cost of A$60 million ($56 million) or more. The search is already the most expensive in aviation history.
The new priority search area is around 2,000 km west of Perth, a stretch of isolated ocean frequently lashed by storm force winds and massive swells.
Two vessels, one Chinese and one from Dutch engineering company Fugro , are currently mapping the sea floor along the arc, where depths exceed 5,000 meters in parts.
A tender to find a commercial operator to conduct the sea floor search closes on Monday.
(Additional reporting by Matt Siegel; Editing by Nick Macfie and Stephen Coates)
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end quote from:
 

Cause of death for MH370 passengers pinpointed

I'm very worried that just like Self Driving cars might have issues like this, Self Driving Planes definitely do as in autopilots. 

I worry that things like this are going to be "Swept under the rug" just like they were by GM in the early 2000s and then all these people died from ignition problems that likely could have been fixed just with a new $3 or $4 part installed. However, then again there is the liability that companies want to duck which would be millions and possibly billions of dollars in all these cases both planes and cars and anything else self driving like maybe ship autopilots and truck autopilots.(self driving semi trucks).

It is very easy to tell the public "This was pilot error". However, what you are really telling people is that the pilots weren't properly trained to use the autopilots or you are saying the autopilots were faulty and the pilots didn't find out in time to save themselves, the crew or the passengers.

I think the same thing could be also said for the Asiana Crash in San Francisco.

 

 

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