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"  Some Malaysian authorities and media pundits are starting to say that the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 may never be solved. Yes, it&amp;#039;s crucial that investigators turn up the airplane&amp;#039;s flight data recorders to find out what clues they offer. But that is not the only way to glean information about what happened. Some clues available now can help to illuminate where the plane ended up, while others could piece together what happened in the air. Data The missing plane is a Boeing 777-200ER, an aircraft that can routinely transit maintenance data via its Aircraft Communications and Reporting System (ACARS). These signals route through ground stations and satellites back to reporting centers that store the data. Malaysia Airlines has said that its planes transmit such information, but have not disclosed any details. When Air France 447 vanished in 2009, that plane transmitted 24 pieces of ACARS data, giving investigators clues into the last moments of the doomed airliner. However, every carrier sets the reporting intervals differently, so it&amp;#039;s not known how much, if any, data was captured. Military Radar MH370 vanished from civilian radar screens at the same time it lost radio contact off the Malaysian coast. But that&amp;#039;s not the only radar data out there.  Civilian radar works in conjunction with transponders on board the aircraft; the radar interrogates the transponder to gather the plane&amp;#039;s identity, altitude, and speed. However, that means if there&amp;#039;s no working transponder, then there&amp;#039;s no radar data. But the Malaysian military has active radar that bounces signals directly off the aircraft&amp;#039;s skin, and that may have captured the flight&amp;#039;s path. Reports today from Malaysian media quote air force chief Rodzali Daudindicate saying that this is the case, and he hinted that the airplane may have been hundreds of miles off course. Passenger List A lot has been made of the fact that multiple passengers on board flight 370 used fake passports. Those names will spiral into wider investigations\u2014in fact, authorities have now identified two Iranians who boarded the flight with false papers, though they found the two men were unlikely to have any terrorist ties. As their work progresses, investigators will use video from the airports, information about the way they got there, interviews with family and friends, and computer-assisted connections with associates to vet all the passengers. The pilots, too, will be scrutinized for a possible suicide scenarios. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a10353/3-things-besides-data-recorders-that-could-tell-us-what-happened-to-flight-370-16582457/>