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Egypt Air flight from Paris disappears from radar

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Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
Airline tweeted a correction that the plane was 10 miles within, not outside Egyptian airspace.

Which, assuming for a second a hostile act, and not an id error or crash, puts it well within the range of amateurs with stolen G2A missiles. And fits with the long unmolested flight and other details.

Literally just speculating about worst case scenarios.
 
Or someone shut it off like that Malaysian Airlines disappearance.
Depends if it's covered by radar or just the transponder
If the transponder went off it would vanish from flightaware data but later it may be revealed that European radar saw it descending rapidly, or some other such trace that shows it probably hit the ocean. This isn't the middle of nowhere.
 

cameron

Member
NBC News Digital Editor:
Micah GrimesVerified account ‏@MicahGrimes 3m3 minutes ago
EgyptAir says Flight MS804 disappeared from radar at 2:45 A.M. Cairo time. It is now 5:22 A.M. in Cairo.
Apparently disappeared 10 minutes before it entered Egyptian airspace as well.
It was scheduled to land at 3:15 AM Cairo time. It's been missing for ~3 hrs.
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
NBC News Digital Editor:



Apparently disappeared 10 minutes before it entered Egyptian airspace as well.

Well, the OP linked flight path has it's "estimated flight time" at like 3:47, and it disappeared/stopped at 3:44. Really funky to have it end so close to landing soon.
 
Typically aircraft have plenty of electrical power redundancies. I wouldn't expect it to have lost all power, enough to knock the transponder offline anyway.

Pure speculation of course.
 

Toxi

Banned
Well, the OP linked flight path has it's "estimated flight time" at like 3:47, and it disappeared/stopped at 3:44. Really funky to have it end so close to landing soon.
Taking off and landing are when the most accidents happen for planes.

Though this doesn't look like a normal accident.
 
Airline confirming it was at an altitude of 37,000ft when it disappeared from radar.

Very strange.
Again it should be made clear whether the radar return blip vanished or the transponder stopped and they haven't seen the radar data yet.

Even with big explosions like Lockerbie the radar sees the body of the plane fall.
 
Egypt has problems with the Muslim Brotherhood the mother brain of AL Qaida, Hamas and recently ISIS.
Egypt needs to be more alert since they're seeking revenge after the crackdown on the MB.
 
What is the problem with speculating? Do you guys think family members of passengers are watching this post. People are just thinking of any possible cause of the plane disappearing.
 

seanoff

Member
1) it didn't just disappear from the ADSB track it was in naked radar range.

2) the data will continue into the ground if the plane has any power

3) in the event of a total power loss ie both engines and the APU and the batteries run out, the RAT will deploy
main-qimg-dfd0e505e0c207f7c71f5572e7f95e86


4) all of the above tends to lead to the conclusion there was a catastrophic mid air event at 37,000 feet

5) there was no apparent weather and modern aircraft tend not just to fall apart.

so .........
 
This would be fantastic. But let's be real.

I'm genuinely surprised by the number of people in this thread claiming that "these things happen" and/or vehemently arguing that mechanical failure must be the cause whenever someone even suggests the possibility of terrorism.
 

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
1) it didn't just disappear from the ADSB track it was in naked radar range.

2) the data will continue into the ground if the plane has any power

3) in the event of a total power loss ie both engines and the APU and the batteries run out, the RAT will deploy
main-qimg-dfd0e505e0c207f7c71f5572e7f95e86


4) all of the above tends to lead to the conclusion there was a catastrophic mid air event at 37,000 feet

5) there was no apparent weather and modern aircraft tend not just to fall apart.

so .........

Yeah, the only mechanical failure I can think of that would result in the loss of an entire plane that quickly is the engine turbines falling apart, sending shrapnel though the fuselage. Though, I can't remember an incident like that since the 90's and that United DC-10 incident in Iowa. And even then the plane was somewhat flyable. The Pilots nearly landed the thing safely, and over half the passengers survived (which is kind of amazing if you see the crash video).

And like you said, planes are tough. Even explosive decompression is unlikely to bring down an airliner.
 

reckless

Member
And vanished from airspace 10 minutes inside the Egyptian border. I'm guessing S2A missile or crew intervention. Hoping for neither.

37000 feet is really high though, like out of MANPAD range isn't it?

So probably not a S2A unless ISIS has some BUKS around in Egypt.
 
Again it should be made clear whether the radar return blip vanished or the transponder stopped and they haven't seen the radar data yet.

Even with big explosions like Lockerbie the radar sees the body of the plane fall.

Controllers don't see radar data, the information they see is reported from aircraft. Whatever happened, happened very quickly.
 

MGrant

Member
This is tragic. What, if any, potential threats could have not just taken down, but removed from radar a commercial airliner at 37,000 feet?
 

reckless

Member
This is tragic. What, if any, potential threats could have not just taken down, but removed from radar a commercial airliner at 37,000 feet?

Massive mechanical/ electronic failure which is really unlikely.
A missile, also very unlikely.
Crew intentionally going dark (maybe).
Or a bomb (seems unlikely since it took off from Paris)
 
This is tragic. What, if any, potential threats could have not just taken down, but removed from radar a commercial airliner at 37,000 feet?

Pilot manually turning data off
Sudden loss of airframe (catastrophic, very sudden)
Power failure (planes have plenty back up)
Terrorism/external forces (bomb, missile)

If I had to put money on, it's be the last option given the flight route.
 

jbug617

Banned
From CNN

@RawyaRageh: #EgyptAir official tells CNN search/rescue crews "already on scene" where plane lost contact "30 or 40 miles north of #Egypt|ian coast"
@RawyaRageh: #EgyptAir official tells CNN *no* report of distress call made by the pilot before plane went missing #Egypt
 

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Pilot manually turning data off
Sudden loss of airframe (catastrophic, very sudden)
Power failure (planes have plenty back up)
Terrorism/external forces (bomb, missile)

If I had to put money on, it's be the last option given the flight route.

Need more clarification from the news, as they usually use the term "radar" pretty loosely. A pilot can turn off the transponder and such so it won't appear on Air Traffic Control scopes, but if a station had the plane on actual radar contact, then there's absolutely nothing the pilot could do to suddenly vanish from radar.

And like some others have already said, even an explosion would result in multiple parts showing up on radar.
 
Need more clarification from the news, as they usually use the term "radar" pretty loosely. A pilot can turn off the transponder and such so it won't appear on Air Traffic Control scopes, but if a station had the plane on actual radar contact, then there's absolutely nothing the pilot could do to suddenly vanish from radar.

And like some others have already said, even an explosion would result in multiple parts showing up on radar.

News and airline almost certainly referring to loss of ADS-B data. The radar data will be on tape and will need to be analysed.
 

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
News and airline almost certainly referring to loss of ADS-B data. The radar data will be on tape and will need to be analysed.

Yeah, if this plane was in Egyptian Airspace when contact was lost then it didn't just vanish over the ocean like the Malaysian Air flight did. They'll know exactly where to look, and probably know already if it exploded.
 

GHG

Member
Oh FFS not again.

Still hoping for better news than what's most likely.

Did they ever find that Malaysia air plane?
 

MMarston

Was getting caught part of your plan?
Oh FFS not again.

Still hoping for better news than what's most likely.

Did they ever find that Malaysia air plane?

They found a part of the wing, and a couple of other small objects.


Apart from that, nothing.
 

GaimeGuy

Volunteer Deputy Campaign Director, Obama for America '16
If they lost contact from both ADS-B (satellite-based position tracking), radar beacon transponders, and search-based radar tracking (basically, when the transponders aren't working, the tracking systems say "oh, we see this object heading west at ~300 knots at a flat altitude, and we've gotten a consistent change in position from the last 2 or 3 radar scans... I think we can assign an identifier to this object and track it that way") simultaneously, that's not good.
 
No weather issues at time of disappearance, clear skies etc.

Airline reporting pilot had 6275hrs flight time, co-pilot 2766hrs.

Plane was built in 2003.
 

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Oh FFS not again.

Still hoping for better news than what's most likely.

Did they ever find that Malaysia air plane?

Pieces almost certainly from the aircraft have been found on islands in the West Indian ocean and east coast of Africa.
 
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