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Botany

(70,567 posts) Mon Mar 17, 2014, 10:57 AM Mar 2014

If MH370 crashed in southern Indian Ocean it wouldn't be seen or heard (average depth 11,000 feet)

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/16/if-mh370-crashed-in-southern-indian-ocean-it-wouldnt-be-seen-or-heard

The southern Indian Ocean, where investigators suspect missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 may have come down, is one place where a commercial airliner can crash without a ship spotting it, a radar plotting it or even a satellite picking it up.

The empty expanse of water is one of the most remote places in the world and also one of the deepest, posing potentially enormous challenges for the international search effort focusing on the area, one of several possible crash sites.

snip

“In most of Western Australia and almost all of the Indian Ocean, there is almost no radar coverage,” an Australian civil aviation authority source said, requesting anonymity as he was not authorised to speak on the record.

snip

The Indian Ocean, the world’s third largest, has an average depth of about 3600 metres. That is deeper than the Atlantic where it took two years to find wreckage from an Air France plane that vanished in 2009 even though floating debris quickly pointed to the crash site.

7 replies

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If MH370 crashed in southern Indian Ocean it wouldn't be seen or heard (average depth 11,000 feet) (Original Post) Botany Mar 2014 OP

It's probably been hiding in plain sight all along. randome Mar 2014 #1

into the abyss Baclava Mar 2014 #2

Aircraft engineers insist that much of the interior is bouyant. Loudly Mar 2014 #3

Aircraft engineers are ignorant of the Old Ones. AngryAmish Mar 2014 #4

Or if Neptune has any memorable commands or decrees. n/t Loudly Mar 2014 #5

That's what I was thinking. Sheldon Cooper Mar 2014 #6

I'm guessing (in a wholly amateur and uninformed way, of course) that it was petronius Mar 2014 #7

randome

(34,845 posts)

1. It's probably been hiding in plain sight all along.

Reply to Botany (Original post)

Mon Mar 17, 2014, 11:07 AM

Mar 2014

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Precision and concision. That's the game.[/center][/font][hr]

Baclava

(12,047 posts)

2. into the abyss

Reply to Botany (Original post)

Mon Mar 17, 2014, 11:19 AM

Mar 2014

if you watched the show 'Draining the Oceans', you know what we call islands are the tippy tops of undersea mountains

Grand Bahama Bank, which rises more than 2 miles high from the Atlantic abyssal plain.
The Bahamas Islands are but the tips of these massive structures

Loudly

(2,436 posts)

3. Aircraft engineers insist that much of the interior is bouyant.

Reply to Botany (Original post)

Mon Mar 17, 2014, 11:59 AM

Mar 2014

Not to mention the luggage.

Stuff will float and wash up ashore.

AngryAmish

(25,704 posts)

4. Aircraft engineers are ignorant of the Old Ones.

Reply to Loudly (Reply #3)

Mon Mar 17, 2014, 12:02 PM

Mar 2014

Crympghhuh dunguda flunutu.

Loudly

(2,436 posts)

5. Or if Neptune has any memorable commands or decrees. n/t

Reply to AngryAmish (Reply #4)

Mon Mar 17, 2014, 12:07 PM

Mar 2014

Sheldon Cooper

(3,724 posts)

6. That's what I was thinking.

Reply to Loudly (Reply #3)

Mon Mar 17, 2014, 12:37 PM

Mar 2014

If it ditched into the ocean, then eventually something will wash ashore somewhere.

petronius

(26,603 posts)

7. I'm guessing (in a wholly amateur and uninformed way, of course) that it was

Reply to Botany (Original post)

Mon Mar 17, 2014, 12:39 PM

Mar 2014

pilot suicide - and that the aircraft was set down as gently as possible in a very remote part of the ocean after everyone on board had been killed/incapacitated by decompression. If the plane was ditched carefully to remain somewhat intact, the floating wreckage may have been minimized...

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