[klabb3]

There's a lot found that very likely belongs to the airplane. It's just not a particularly sexy story. Most likely it's pilot murder-suicide, they did find a highly suspicious looking path in the pilot/copilot's flight sim. Iirc, during the handover from Malaysia to Vietnam ATCs, the pilot depressurizes the cabin, turns off transponders, turns around to avoid civilian radar, and once out of radar reach heads south across the ocean until the fuel runs out. Perhaps to have time to himself or maybe deliberately to not be found, out of shame.

It explains why the two main mysteries – why the initial search was a failure, and the lack of radio and transponder data.

It's also easy to see why authorities and airline operators want to silence it, especially if they have plausible deniability to do so. There is simply less prestige lost in a failed international search-and-rescue than a national airline pilot killing innocent people for god knows what reason.

[anshumankmr]

>the pilot depressurizes the cabin, turns off transponders, turns around to avoid civilian radar

wtf... Why is there a way for one person to depressurise the cabin?

[jazzyjackson]

Because if you can't trust the pilot you're fucked anyway?

[kortilla]

Wait till you find out what they can do with the little steering wheel like thing and the other levers in front of them!

[jahewson]

Can be used to clear the cabin of smoke in the event of a fire.

[userbinator]

Or in case of overpressure, which can be just as bad.

[Grimburger]

You sure about that?

Humans regularly work at 30x atmospheric pressure and can probably go to 100x

https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/32640/what-is-the-...

[mattashii]

I don't think airplane hulls are designed for more than 1 Atm of pressure differential between cabin and the outside; according to the wikipedia article [0] on cabin pressurization normal values are between 540 and 690 hPa pressure differential are normal.

If the cabin has an overpressure event, the hull might pop like a balloon, leading to a decompression event.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabin_pressurization

[userbinator]

Exactly. The humans aren't the problem, it's the plane itself.

[afterburner]

These seem to talk mostly about diving, where you breathe from a regulated air supply. I assume that air supply is not at 30-100x atmospheric pressure?

[bboygravity]

If the air supply wouldn't be at a slightly higher pressure than that, the air would get sucked out of your lungs as far as I understand.

This is why dive tanks run out way way faster the deeper you go (around 1 hour at 18 meters deep and around 10 minutes at 30+ meters out the top of my head).

[heavenlyblue]

Air supply is at that pressure, but they don't breathe the same mix as atmospheric air. Atmospheric air becomes narcotic at 4 atmospheres.

[Grimburger]

The air is at that pressure, as is the surrounding water pressure on the human body.

We are remarkably good at handling higher pressures.