If the fuselage integrity have been breached by a fire lasting several hours,.

I doubt that, aluminium alloy weakens very quickly with heat. A weakened pressure hull would rupture pretty quickly when pressurized.

The wings are paneled with composite -> glass like type of cracking at extreme load (crash) -> wing pieces are not insulated and are drowning pretty fast,.

The leading edges and trailing edges are made of composite and should rip off during a crash.

A big hollowed airliner fuselage tend not to be really floatable also following a crash at sea,.

.

Ha! To quote Bob Newhart (The Grace L Ferguson Airline and storm door company) (Youtube)
“Some float for two to three minutes, others go down like a stone!”

Hence we should not be surprised if we detect nearly no big parts of the plane.

But we SHOULD be seeing loads of seat cushions, life jackets and other buoyant stuff’

What Boeing should do is to identify the parts of the wings that will float (fuel tanks for example), makes a 3D radar image of that and pipe it up into a SAR imagery data base for the Poseïdon and alikes. It might be the only way to discriminate floating objects quickly enough.

The fuel tanks, no matter how empty, will not float.

I do not subscribe to any of the outlandish conspiracy theory’s but the lack of debris, even after this length of time is….er……concerning?!!

Rgds Cking

What do you mean? Not plausible or the other way ? It has been suggested here that a DC9 had a similar story
.

If there had been a nose wheel fire in the past there would be some protection system fitted. In the past 36 years I have been in the aviation maintenance industry I have never heard of an aircraft having a nose gear fire. Of the 30+ aircraft types I have worked, none of them had any form of nose gear over heat detection system fitted. Whilst I cannot say that there is no possibility of there being a nose wheel fire, it would be a first for me!

Regarding the Hijacking scenario, I had in mind the PaperFree program

(reminder)

On a security basis it can been seen as a breach (especially if pads are not lockup after flight). There is also the concomitant facts that the Pilot was heavily committed to the web community.

You have lost me there. I don’t understand this bit.

Rgds Cking

How big is the blow out section? Could it blocked by cushions, meal trays, hand luggage, cabin staff, etc?

I can’t recall the exact size but they are protected by grills so it would be difficult to accidentally block them. Don’t forget there are other openings I the flight deck for the rudder pedals, control column, throttles etc to pass through. The flight deck floor and rear bulkheads are not pressure tight, blow out panels are fitted just in case.

OK, that seems reasonable. Would cabin staff with the required code be able to open the door, or does the door also require permission from the pilots inside the cockpit before it will open?

I do not think that a public forum is the right place to discuss this.

Were the recommended modifications after the Egypt Air 777 cockpit fire in 2011 mandatory worldwide?

Yes.

Did Malaysia Airlines carry out these modifications?

Don’t know but as they were mandatory and Malaysian are very hot on their maintenance I have no reason to doubt it.

Does the Flight Management System or autopilot have a default altitude setting, if the aircraft is hurriedly put onto autopilot by a desperate pilot in a burning or completely de-pressured cockpit?

No. The chances are IF there was a serious fire at some point the autopilot would drop out anyway

Do the turning points of flight MH370 correspond to normal waypoints that might have been left programmed into the autopilot from previous flights?

Don’t know, that’s a “pilotie” type question

What is the likelihood of surviving an oxygen fed fire like the Egypt Air fire, if the fire occurred in flight?

The crew would have noticed the fire and would have fought it earlier. If they did not put it out the breach of the pressure hull would have caused an explosive de compression whether that would have put it out is open to question. If it didn’t and the fire had carried on I suspect that the aircraft would have crashed.

Are the electronics of the FMS or autopilot system located away from the cockpit, such that the systems can keep the aircraft in the air if the cockpit is destroyed?

There are components of each system mounted in the flight deck and in the forward lower avionics bay. All the bits must work for the system to work. If the flight deck is destroyed, you crash.

Rgds Cking

Pilot’s unions have been very anti the CVR in the past, that’s why there is an erase button fitted in the flight deck.
The constant transmition of cockpit audio would probably be opposed for the same reason, they don’t want their firms to listen in to them moaning about the firm! If you consider the lengths that certain firms have gone to, to get information out of certain websites don’t think that this info won’t be used in the wrong way.
I should imagine that the FDR will show that the aircraft was behaving fine. The CVR will probably have recorded the various warning sounds of the flame outs and EGPWS warnings and little else.
As for who did it. All the information to navigate and fly the 777 is out there on the internet. The flight sim community have programs (Some written by pilots) that replicate the 777 and it’s FMC so it doesn’t have to be one of the aircrew that did it, just someone in the flight deck.
This is a very sad event and I, personally, don’t think there will be a full explanation.

Rgds Cking

Regarding the frwd fuselage tank I was mentioning, I fear I mistook the shaded shape on the sketch for what it is not (see fire doc some page ago). Does someone have any clues about it ?

The 777 has three fuel tank assembly’s, one in each wing and one in the centre wing box. the 777-200LR has the option of factory fitting extra tanks in the fwd and aft cargo bays. These are fitted as close to the centre wing box as practical for C of G reasons. (God knows how they get to the air conditioning mixer unit and the recirc fans) There is no fuel tank in the fwd avionics bay.
The 777’s fuselage skin, frames and stringers are made of aluminium alloy. The wing boxes are also made of aluminium alloy Off the top of my head I can’t remember what the fin and stab are made of.
The aircraft has a very large amount of composite bits on it and I should imagine the debris field the day it crashed was huge. After two weeks in the roughest seas on the planet, I should imagine it will be spread very thinly over hundreds of miles.

Rgds Cking

I-TITI…….uh…huuh huh huh

Rgds Cking…..uh…huuh huh huh

Looking forward to this. I do hope they concentrate on the pilots and cabin crew.

Rgds Cking

. they “Looked” like they were falling apart, interior trim was hanging off,……

Did you mention this to the cabin crew? The cabin crew would have got it looked at by the maintenance personnel at MAN

. on the return journey the aircraft was no better, but as the power was applied for take off there was a really loud whirring/rumbling noise (over the usual jet noise) that sounded for all the world like a badly worn wheel bearing on a car, this unnerving noise was very apparent almost up to cruising altitude,……

That is the RB211 “Growl” It is caused by the “Broad cord” fan blades that provide the majority of the thrust of the engine. All High bypass engines make that noise to a certain extent when working hard. It is a fantastic sound that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up!

. basically these aircraft were in dire need of a major re-fit in my humble opinion. Obviously the aircraft did its job and got us back to MAN safely but I was quite annoyed at the shoddy state of the aircraft considering the price we paid for the tickets and the MAIN CABIN EXTRA upgrade,……

Write to them and tell them. My airline received so many complaints that they set up a dedicated hit team to deal with it. They didn’t touch the cabin, THEY WENT AFTER THE PASSENGERS!!!:D
Seriously. The more complaints an airline receives about the cabin and the more times a passenger points a defect out to the cabin crew, means that something will get done. As an engineer I cannot fix something if I don’t know about it.

As for the in flight entertainment, it is my least favourite subject. I do not use it when I fly because there is never anything on it I want to watch. As an engineer it causes me more problems than the aircraft its self and it worries me that one day an engineer will be so distracted trying to fix it that he will miss something important. (Not me. If switching it off and on don’t fix it, it’s differed!)

Rgds Cking