[LINK] Cyber hijack of MH370?

[Martin Barry]

$quoted_author = "Jan Whitaker" ;
> 
> Interesting analysis. I don't know enough about the way ATC uses any 
> ACARS data during conversation to know if the sequence below is 
> relevant. Can you clear this up for me? I mentioned to a friend I'd 
> ask someone in the know. :-)

So there have been 4 ways the plane has been tracked:

- Active transponder which tracked the flight from take off till the time it
  "disappeared". It appears to have been deliberately switched off.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_dependent_surveillance-broadcast

- ACARS transmissions. These are automated uploads of operational data to
  the airline and manufacturers. It appears they were only occurring every
  30 minutes on MH370 and the last one was about 20 minutes before it
  "disappeared". These transmissions appear to have been deliberately
  stopped.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Communications_Addressing_and_Reporting_System

- Military radar appears to have tracked the original change of course till
  the flight was near Phuket.

- ACARS signalling. Much like your mobile phone constantly communicates with
  the nearest cell tower even if you are not on a call, the ACARS system
  does a similar thing with the satellite via which it would send uploads.
  The satellite is geo-stationary so using the round trip latency of these
  signals has enabled the plotting of 2 tracks, one "anti-clockwise" over
  Asia and the other "clockwise" out over the Indian Ocean. See the two
  images in
  http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2014/03/17/mh370-update-has-co-pilot-saying-all-right-good-night/

The coverage has been fairly sensational. The best reading has come from Ben
Sandilands http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/ and Simon Hradecky
http://avherald.com/h?article=4710c69b&opt=0

cheers
Marty