LETTERS
34 | Flight International | 17-23 March 2015 flightglobal.com
[email protected]DISAPPEARANCE
Likely cause of missing MH370
Having read the just-released interim statement by the Malaysian
Safety Investigation Team for MH370, and related factual informa-
tion, I am struck that neither the team nor apparently anyone else
has remarked upon a departure from routine in the final radio
broadcast from MH370. Protocol on being told to contact the next
ATC agency is for a pilot to read back the frequency given to him by
ATC, to ensure he has copied the correct frequency.
For example, the captain of MH370 does this when told by
Lumpur Approach to contact Lumpur Radar. Yet when Lumpur Radar
tells MH370 to contact Ho Chi Minh (on approaching Vietnamese
airspace) on 120.9, the captain simply replies “Goodnight,
Malaysian 370”. He does not read back the frequency.
This is not routine and may indicate he had no intention of talking
to Ho Chi Minh ACC or of continuing with his flight-planned routing to
Beijing. In this case, it is no coincidence that within the next two
minutes MH370’s Mode S symbol disappeared from civil ATC
radars, and military (primary) radar observed the aircraft turn onto
an almost reciprocal heading.
In all the debate about what may have happened, I have never seen
any reference to this anomaly in MH370’s last radio transmission. Yet
it lends support to the commonly held theory that the aircraft’s disap-
pearance was the result of human intervention from the flight deck.
Mike Strong
Farnham, Surrey, UKWe welcome your letters on
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INTERNATIONAL
We welcome your letters on
any aspect of the aerospace
industry.
Please write to: The Editor,
Flight International, Quadrant
House, The Quadrant, Sutton,
Surrey SM2 5AS, UK.
Or email flight.international@
flightglobal.com
The opinions on this page do not
necessarily represent those of the editor.
Letters without a full postal address sup-
plied may not be published. Letters may
also be published on flightglobal.com and
must be no longer than 250 words.FLIGHT
INTERNATIONALNot an industry
of stuntsmen
it’s not like “operating” a sim.
There are people out there
who have zero experience
practising emergency proce-
dures. I am shocked.
When I started flying in 1962
we had old planes and no stall
warning horns to tell you if the
wing was going to stop generat-
ing lift. The instructors would
have you fly real slow and actu-
ally feel the airplane.
So I learned how to do stalls
and spins and cross controlled
slips and crabs.
By the time I showed up for
my flight test in 1965, I had about
an hour of slow flight, an hour of
(very) steep turns, and an hour of
crabs, cross controlled slips and
gusty crosswind landings –
which started in my second hour
of instruction.
It’s a little uncomfortable, but
that’s why you learn with an
instructor. And these things are
not acrobatics.
Albert Masetti
Harrington, Delaware, USAMissing facts
Are there any copy editors
looking for work?
The TransAsia ATR 72 of the 4
February Taipei crash (reported
in Flight International , 10-16
February) “previously had a
faulty left engine, which was
replaced in Macau”. When was it
replaced: last week, last year? No
date appears in the article. This
is useless “information” without
the date.
Similarly, in an article on P25
in that same issue you report “On
average, the [Indian] air force
airlifts about 35,000t of cargo...”
When: daily, weekly, yearly?
No time period is given in the ar-
ticle. This is useless “informa-
tion” without the time period.
James G Johnson
Nanjing, ChinaHow long will it be before an in-
experienced aviator “collects the
fence” in an ostentatious display
of their unsuitability to be in
control of an aircraft, flying into
somewhere like Saint Maarten?
An Embraer pilot gives us a
perfect example of this disregard
for safety with a recently filmed
video of ERJ-190 (PP-XMA)
passing, what appears to be, less
than 10ft from beachgoers’
heads, (screenshot attached).
We are an industry of profes-
sionals, not stuntmen, and pilots
should be fixated on hitting the
touchdown zone, rather than the
fan pages of Instagram.
Jon Salmon
Corporate Communications Officer,
AirTanker, London, UKHeading nowhere
A relevant detail not mentioned
in the MH370 article written by
David Learmount that refers to
Capt Simon Hardy’s calculations
( Flight International , 13-19
January), is that Capt Hardy’s
hypothetical track flies exactly
over the waypoint RUNUT, and
this is really the last possible
waypoint to the direction of the
southern Indian Ocean (from
IGREX or ANOKO) – after whichthere is absolutely nothing.
It is the ideal final waypoint to
go towards “nowhere”.
Fernando Ariño Grau
Embraer Executive Jets, ChinaFeeling the flying
Why are we still discussing
appropriate flight training and
the failure to recognise and do
something about impending
aerodynamic stalls?
Nowadays, getting or requiring
three hours of “unusual atti-
tudes” (which used to be normal
ordinary flight instruction) is not
rocket science.
And if you need a certain
number of hours for a commer-
cial licence or an airline trans-
port pilot licence, it’s not that dif-
ficult to sign up for 10 hours of
aerobatics training.
Flying is not driving a car andTraining courses to take you there
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