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Malaysian Airline Flight MH370

RacerDeac said:
I don't know enough about the technology, but I assume the transponder, with time, could be hacked to make the plane appear as something other than what it is. If it looked like an expected flight on secondary radar (i.e. was displaying an expected tail #, speed, flight path, etc), air traffic controllers would be none the wiser. Or, going on the same theory about the disappearance, it would be possible to fly the plane along most any other route again "undetected" by following a legitimate flight. If it worked the first time, it should work again.
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transponders only send a signal to attach to a radar contact. it does not send aircraft identification information. Pilots communicating with ground control state their transponder number along with flight and aircraft type when they initially contact ground control.
 
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ImTheCaptain said:
transponders only send a signal to attach to a radar contact. it does not send aircraft identification information. Pilots communicating with ground control state their transponder number along with flight and aircraft type when they initially contact ground control.
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I thought it sent position, altitude and call sign (flight ID) based on the assigned squawk code. The flight number would "ID" the plane, but I guess that is configurable anyway since planes fly multiple routes, so no need to hack anything.

Edit: I was originally thinking call-sign was hard coded as the tail number, but after more research found out that it's the flight number for commercial flights.
 
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RacerDeac said:
I thought it sent position, altitude and call sign (flight ID) based on the assigned squawk code. The flight number would "ID" the plane, but I guess that is configurable anyway since planes fly multiple routes, so no need to hack anything.
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I was under that impression too after hearing that sometimes the airport tower controls will have the pilots cut off the transponders when in a holding pattern because there are too many planes in the area and they can't focus on the one landing.
 
BobStackFan4Life said:
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Interesting - people on Reddit (and I thought I read in an article as well) have been saying that the "goodnight" came after the the ACARS and (or?) transponder were shut down but that doesn't look like the case from time timeline. Unless the info for #2 is slightly off and they do know an exact time that the ACARS was shut down, and it was before 1:19.
 
well, to change your code you just turn a knob, so it's not something you'd really "hack". Squawk codes are 'physically' assigned by a controller. Granted, I'm not as familiar with commercial airliners, but squawk codes are often changed when you change air traffic control centers (e.g. flying from the NYC air traffic zone to DC or Charlotte centers).
 
LadyDeac03 said:
Yeah, one of my friends works with that company and he said they lost basically their whole R&D dept.
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R&D from a technology defense contractor? And it potentially landed somewhere near China? And it had tons of Chinese nationals on board? Yeah, that's not good...

The potential conspiracies around this are amazing.
 
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We will never find the plane. We may find out what happened but the physical plane was destroyed as soon as it landed IMO.
 
Wait, if they just wanted to get at these R&D engineers, wouldn't it have been WAY easier to just have some Chinese special agents kidnap them once the plane landed in Beijing?
 
BeachBumDeac said:
Wait, if they just wanted to get at these R&D engineers, wouldn't it have been WAY easier to just have some Chinese special agents kidnap them once the plane landed in Beijing?
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20 american defense R&D people go missing in China? US intelligence would be even more all over that in addition to pressure from the state dept.
 
Caturdayredux said:
Fox News is disgusting. 50/50 it landed somewhere. Anything for ratings.
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Wolf Blitzer is fuggin disgusting as well...possibly more.

A couple of days ago he engaged in a series of "what ifs". What if the plane had a large load of lithium batteries...we have a battery specialist from Duracell...or some such ignorant and baseless conjecture.
 
If the hijackers/state/whatever were after the R&D people, I really doubt China was behind it. Somehow I don't think even Iran is dumb enough to piss off the US and China though.
 
I know of only one Butthead who can make an airplane disappear.

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