Flight 370 (a Boeing 777) has disappeared – could math and meteorology help find the missing plane? Photo credit M42
Malaysia Flight 370, a Boeing 777, has disappeared. This plane is a 300 ton object that easily blots out the sun if one stands underneath a wing.
How long should it take to find such an aircraft in the air, on the ground, or in the ocean? That depends mostly on the amount of territory that has to be searched.
Flight 370: How the Atmosphere Affects the Range of the Plane
An airplane needs a sufficient density of the air flowing over the wings in order to maintain stability. The density of air above about 8 miles in altitude falls below the critical value for a Boeing 777. If the plane flies too high, it will become uncontrollable and crash, literally vanishing into thin air.
The Volume of Space Below Eight Miles
The surface area of a sphere with radius r is A=4πr^2. The radius of the earth is about 4,000 miles, so its surface area is approximately 200,000,000 square miles. Thus the volume of space below eight miles is this number multiplied by eight — about one and one-half billion cubic miles. If an aircraft had an infinite amount of fuel, it could fly around undetected for a very long time. Even given that radar covers most land areas, a plane continuing to fly over oceans would have a billion cubic miles in which to disappear.
The Range of a Boeing 777
Flight 370 was headed from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, a distance of 2700 miles. Though the Boeing 777 has a range of 5200 miles on a full tank of fuel, commercial airliners rarely carry more than enough fuel to take them to their destination and a few hundred additional miles. The range of Malaysia 370 was certainly not more than 3500 miles. Furthermore, it is nearly impossible for the pilots of this plane to have found a place at which to refuel and take off again undetected.
Because the aircraft is no longer in the air, the search can be confined to the land and sea surface within a radius of 3500 miles from Kuala Lumpur. A circle with a radius of 3500 miles has an area A=πr^2, which equals 40 million square miles. The curvature of the earth introduces no more than a rounding error.
It is clear from the flight path of the plane that the pilots wished to stay out of the range of ground-based radar; so we can take the area of the Indian Ocean, 28 million square miles, to be the area that investigators need to search.
How Long Will It Take To Find The Plane?
A pilot in a small plane that flies 100 miles per hour with a visual range of two miles in every direction could search about three thousand square miles of the ocean’s surface in an eight-hour day. If 30 such planes were used, the debris of Flight 370 would be located in 30 days or less. Hopefully electronic signals picked up by satellite, satellite photography, and data from ships will narrow the search area. Provided there is visual evidence of the crash, reasonable assumptions lead to the conclusion that the wreckage should be found within a week.
A Decidedly Gloomy Scenario
Much of the Indian Ocean is over ten thousand feet deep. It is infinitely harder to find an object on the bottom of the deep ocean than at the surface of the land or sea. In 2009, Air France Flight 447 went down in ten thousand feet of water in the Atlantic Ocean. It took two years for investigators to recover the plane, despite the fact that the point of impact was known. If Malaysia 370 crashed in the deep Indian Ocean and sank without leaving any evidence at the surface, the plane may never be found.
© Copyright 2014 Jon Plotkin, All rights Reserved. Written For: Decoded Science
Well, let me add few important points and ideas here for the SEARCH :
A- First the most likely scenario is not a crush from a height but `softly plunging` down to the deep water at low altitude flight throughout , so possibility of any `DEBRIS` is highly unlikely depending on the `Depth` of plunging location the landing at the bottom will be like slow motion too without disintegration of the plane to release any debris . Low altitude flight till the fuel tank is empty and
eventually the jet engines stops and this scenario is relatively slowly progressing event and accompanied with progressive power and altitude loss throughout and at the last stages softly plunges in the water .
B-Second ; this is more like and act of Suicide Homicide Mission by the pilot rather than hijacking for
bargaining so all likely `planned` far advance by the pilot , and the most likely location is Open Oceans : since the TOTAL maximum flight time possible only for 8 hrs. and 31 minutes according to satellite `ping ` `hand shake` data . It means all the fuel exhausted +Auto Pilot is set to low speed 250 miles/ hr +low altitude +maximum distance to Open Ocean .
C- Since no radar or Defense Satellite data available as we know by now (Since all of them aiming to the land masses and population centers obviously ) only clue can come from ;
1- The Ship Captains and Ship Crews who were sailing the Indian ocean specifically on March 8th night and early morning and/or 2- Remote islanders distributed nearby the potential cruise
trajectory of the plane . And specifically inquire LOW FLYING JUMBO JET that night until the sun rise time March 8th from the ship captains or crews .
The Logical approach should be ; from the time of 01.07 AM Kuala Lumpur time last transponder coordinates as a Focal point TO DRAW CIRCLES westward Hourly 250 miles intervals (assuming 250
mile/hr speed ) CIRCLES DRAWN WESTWARD TO THE OPEN OCEAN –Disregarding any populated major island or land mass and Determine or openly inquire THE SIGHTING OF LOW FLYING JUMBO JET every sailing ship on that night supposed to be sailing at those coordinates in the open ocean , if you are lucky enough to find EVEN ONE reliable location of sighting of A JUMBO JET by any Ship Captain or Crew and the plane is PRESUMED on THE AUTO PILOT you can draw a STRAIGHT LINE from the last transponder coordinates and if you find 2 different sightings that would definitely CONFIRM THE ROUTE TRAJECTORY with very high certainty and you can calculate the POTENTIAL LOCATION OF THE PLAIN ON THAT LINE OF FLIGHT – Remember the the total flight time is Minimum 7 hrs. and 31 minutes to maximum of 8 hrs. and 30 minutes( 1 minute before the last 8th ping that never happened and engine stopped ) . Only unknown variable is the SPEED OF
THE FLIGHT ( that can be calculated also from the 2 sighting times and distances OR the last transponder signal location –Focal point- at 01.07 to the sighting location distance ) ..