tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4954486699810607306.post2100878808411028051..comments2023-11-02T02:40:48.410-07:00Comments on Crime Fiction Collective: Flight 370: When real life inspires fiction, and fiction inspires real lifeL.J. Sellershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10213491074676394406noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4954486699810607306.post-23143332534746307932014-03-26T10:48:40.599-07:002014-03-26T10:48:40.599-07:00Great ideas, Ayem!
Before leaving Monterey, I wen...Great ideas, Ayem!<br /><br />Before leaving Monterey, I went to the aquarium and attended a session on sharks. They're able to put a tracing mechanism on sharks that are designed to eventually fall off and float to the surface of the sea where they emit a signal to be picked up. They'r about the size of a small bottle of water. If we can do that with sharks...Peg Brantleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04906858123466177508noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4954486699810607306.post-31297841977163407972014-03-25T18:53:12.405-07:002014-03-25T18:53:12.405-07:00And excuse any typos! And excuse any typos! Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17450470829315838666noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4954486699810607306.post-87593871442693907402014-03-25T18:52:47.200-07:002014-03-25T18:52:47.200-07:00Hi Aymen,
I remember our Twitter chat about this ...Hi Aymen,<br /><br />I remember our Twitter chat about this last week. This has indeed been a tragic and mystifying tragedy. I do hope that the investigators eventually get to the bottom of what happened, although I suspect this will take a long time (possibly 1-2 years). <br /><br />My own thoughts about the satellite images and the delays in getting them were as follows. If there is no need for a government to have a specific satellite positioned over a particular geographical area (say for example during an active war, when you're going to want to see troops and large scale equipment moving, for e.g. with current Russia-Ukraine issue, or Middle East situations like Syria's biochemical stockpile or Iran's nuclear plants) then the images would have been captured by satellites just "covering" those areas and would have been analysed retrospectively, after the event. There was a lot of confusion in the first few days of this search about where the last contact/signal was obtained. This made it even more difficult to know where to "point" those satellites or which one to go take a closer look at. <br /><br />And the Malaysian government would have had to ask other governments permission to obtain images from specific satellites or to get them to analyze their images themselves. There are a gazillion satellites out there but I don't know how many have imaging capability and how many "digital eyes" would have been covering that part of the world at that time. Many of these satellites are for military use and the respective governments behind them would have been cautious about sharing their military data freely. <br /><br />I suspect that speculation will remain rife for months to come as to whether this was a systematic and catastrophic series of electrical failures or whether this was a deliberate human act.<br /><br />I think your ideas are all excellent. The technologies exist. But it does ultimately boil down to money. Not just in building future planes but incorporating these new technologies in older planes. Like you said, accidents like this rarely happen, so it comes down to hard, cold, cost-benefit analyses. <br /><br />The streaming cockpit video idea is good but would again not be a prospective, but more a retrospective exercise. You'd need double if not more than the the current number of air traffic controllers to be able to monitor all those video streams live: if I'm not wrong, each air traffic controller is monitoring the flight path of several planes simultaneously. The more practical solution would be to zoom in on a "problem plane"'s cockpit video stream, i.e. a plane that's deviated off its intended path or failed to make a scheduled contact.<br /><br />Anyway, that's all my addled brain can come up with tonight :)<br />Thanks for a thought-provoking post Aymen!<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17450470829315838666noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4954486699810607306.post-78622303081172978412014-03-25T10:05:49.730-07:002014-03-25T10:05:49.730-07:00Thanks for a very thoughtful, intelligent analysis...Thanks for a very thoughtful, intelligent analysis and excellent suggestions for the aeronautics industry, Aymen! And you pose an excellent question: Why, with all the technology available to us now, have they not already implemented some of your suggestions?<br /><br />And I highly recommend the excellent international thriller I edited for you, Terminal Rage. Readers will be entertained by a clever, nail-biting thrill ride for only $2.99.Jodie Rennerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17180607353893233389noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4954486699810607306.post-67842952480600905792014-03-25T06:49:24.442-07:002014-03-25T06:49:24.442-07:00Great summary and insight! It would be another tra...Great summary and insight! It would be another tragedy for the aviation industry to not learn from this incident and make improvements. You should go a step further and send them a letter. L.J. Sellershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10213491074676394406noreply@blogger.com