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Post by britsabroad on Mar 17, 2014 12:15:21 GMT
Now they know its a hijacking I wonder how much of what's being released is misinformation in case of who is watching.
You can be absolutely certain the Americans and Chinese know more than they're letting on.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2014 13:47:24 GMT
It's under the sea.
Whether it was hijacked. Whether it was pilot/co-pilot suicide Whether it was external hacking (seems massively unlikely)
But the oddest thing, if it did fly for another 7 hours ... is that it can't have flown over land. Even if everyone had been well behaved and switched off on take off; after the original flight time expired - even plus an hour or two! - surely some passenger or crew would have turned on their smartphone / tablet? I am assuming such records have been checked?! Given that no one did, the only plausible explanation is that they had no signal ... the only two ways that seems possible are:
They were over the sea. The "hijackers" confiscated every comms device (or had a jammer) on the plane
When you start to tot it all up, if it was hijacked it is the most elaborate and complex hijacking ever. And to what purpose? The only sensible target would have been an hour or less from where they took over the plane. Even if you imagine that somehow the crew / passengers prevented that, why would the plane then fly on for 7 hours?!
So I think my current best guess is pilot / co-pilot suicide ... absolutely tragic if it took a 7 hour flight to accomplish that ... imagine being on board and banging on that cockpit door ...
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Post by britsabroad on Mar 17, 2014 14:43:34 GMT
It's under the sea. Whether it was hijacked. Whether it was pilot/co-pilot suicide Whether it was external hacking (seems massively unlikely) But the oddest thing, if it did fly for another 7 hours ... is that it can't have flown over land. Even if everyone had been well behaved and switched off on take off; after the original flight time expired - even plus an hour or two! - surely some passenger or crew would have turned on their smartphone / tablet? I am assuming such records have been checked?! Given that no one did, the only plausible explanation is that they had no signal ... the only two ways that seems possible are: They were over the sea. The "hijackers" confiscated every comms device (or had a jammer) on the plane When you start to tot it all up, if it was hijacked it is the most elaborate and complex hijacking ever. And to what purpose? The only sensible target would have been an hour or less from where they took over the plane. Even if you imagine that somehow the crew / passengers prevented that, why would the plane then fly on for 7 hours?! So I think my current best guess is pilot / co-pilot suicide ... absolutely tragic if it took a 7 hour flight to accomplish that ... imagine being on board and banging on that cockpit door ... Flight crew oxygen supply can provide oxygen for hours, passenger oxygen is good for about 20 minutes, its from a different system. Pilots could quite easily depressurise the cabin and starve everyone but themselves of oxygen, knocking everyone out or worse. Looking at the map showing the possible locations from the satellite pings, there's an awful lot of vast, open space in Western China and the various 'stans that have plenty of people with axes to grind. Whats known so far already makes it the most complex hijacking in history, never mind whats yet to be discovered.
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Post by The Drunken Communist on Mar 17, 2014 15:20:59 GMT
I can't buy for a minute as it's anything to do with 'The Stans' or any Muslim group. Sure there are plenty of them out there who hate the US/UK/West, & they certainly have a History when it comes to hijacking planes, but, why on Earth would they want to go & piss off the superpower of the east by hijacking a plane full of Chinese? It makes absolutely no sense, even less so when they could have hijacked a plane from any of the dodgey countries round their way & more than likely no-one would have even noticed.... Or do what they did last time & just get straight in there & fly into something, none of this "lets land & hide for a later date" shit. Why no demands either? Islamic groups love to get their 'trophies' on the tele & surely we'd have seen some beheadings by now or summat.
There's that group in China who're doing some killings against the Chinese (Didn't they kill loads of people in a train station the other week?) But why go to Malaysia & nick a plane when they could just take their pick of any internal flight in China?
If it's the pilot wants make this political message load of bollox he's doing a pretty shit job of it 'cos no message has got out. Where are his family? Didn't they move house before he left? Have they been found yet? What have they had to say?
So for me terrorism is out 'cos I can't see who benefits by dragging China into it. I'm guessing it crashing/blowing up/etc... is out as there's no wreckage or what have you. There's always plenty of 'war games' going on in those parts so has it been shot down & it's a big cover up? An awful lot of countries are involved to be covering it up though.
I'll be fucked if I know whats happened, it's really interesting though!
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Post by redsaturday on Mar 17, 2014 16:37:27 GMT
Could be Christian extremists
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Post by britsabroad on Mar 18, 2014 11:36:06 GMT
I can't buy for a minute as it's anything to do with 'The Stans' or any Muslim group. Sure there are plenty of them out there who hate the US/UK/West, & they certainly have a History when it comes to hijacking planes, but, why on Earth would they want to go & piss off the superpower of the east by hijacking a plane full of Chinese? It makes absolutely no sense, even less so when they could have hijacked a plane from any of the dodgey countries round their way & more than likely no-one would have even noticed.... Or do what they did last time & just get straight in there & fly into something, none of this "lets land & hide for a later date" shit. Why no demands either? Islamic groups love to get their 'trophies' on the tele & surely we'd have seen some beheadings by now or summat. There's that group in China who're doing some killings against the Chinese (Didn't they kill loads of people in a train station the other week?) But why go to Malaysia & nick a plane when they could just take their pick of any internal flight in China? If it's the pilot wants make this political message load of bollox he's doing a pretty shit job of it 'cos no message has got out. Where are his family? Didn't they move house before he left? Have they been found yet? What have they had to say? So for me terrorism is out 'cos I can't see who benefits by dragging China into it. I'm guessing it crashing/blowing up/etc... is out as there's no wreckage or what have you. There's always plenty of 'war games' going on in those parts so has it been shot down & it's a big cover up? An awful lot of countries are involved to be covering it up though. I'll be fucked if I know whats happened, it's really interesting though! Not all Muslims have their sights on the UK/US. There are plenty in that region who are against China, both Muslim and non-Muslim.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2014 11:43:18 GMT
what i just don't buy is that it's some kind of terrorism. terrorism is there to intimidate people to make a specific point about something which is why they blow up things, crash things into buildings etc. as people can see exactly what they have done and what they are capable of. playing hide and seek with a plane really doesn't accomplish any kind of terrorist goal though as no-one can see any kind of point being made, especially when no terrorist group has claimed it as their doing..if it is a terrorist act then it's the most ill-thought out one as no-one knows who did it, therefore what message it's supposed to be sending or what they've actually even done, it completely contradicts the point of any kind of terrorist attack. and i don't buy into the Americans knowing more than they're letting on, if the USA knew what had happened and who did it then we'd have seen action from them by now, they can't wait for an excuse to wade into a country and start fights with people when it's none of their business in the first place.
it is just completely bloody bizarre!
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Post by oatcakesteve on Mar 18, 2014 20:39:34 GMT
Isn't there still a couple of million square miles still to search? It could have crashed in some remote location. Surely it has crashed somewhere. Other than that, how the hell do you hide a plane of that size with all of those people?
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Post by prudhoe on Mar 19, 2014 3:08:10 GMT
I think a question the aviation industry seriously needs to answer after this is why the fuck can a planes transponder be turned off by a pilot in flight? What legitimate reason is there that any comercial airliner would want to be invisible to radar? Surely this should be stuck on and cant be switched off until a plane is on the ground.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 19, 2014 11:01:56 GMT
It's under the sea. Whether it was hijacked. Whether it was pilot/co-pilot suicide Whether it was external hacking (seems massively unlikely) But the oddest thing, if it did fly for another 7 hours ... is that it can't have flown over land. Even if everyone had been well behaved and switched off on take off; after the original flight time expired - even plus an hour or two! - surely some passenger or crew would have turned on their smartphone / tablet? I am assuming such records have been checked?! Given that no one did, the only plausible explanation is that they had no signal ... the only two ways that seems possible are: They were over the sea. The "hijackers" confiscated every comms device (or had a jammer) on the plane When you start to tot it all up, if it was hijacked it is the most elaborate and complex hijacking ever. And to what purpose? The only sensible target would have been an hour or less from where they took over the plane. Even if you imagine that somehow the crew / passengers prevented that, why would the plane then fly on for 7 hours?! So I think my current best guess is pilot / co-pilot suicide ... absolutely tragic if it took a 7 hour flight to accomplish that ... imagine being on board and banging on that cockpit door ... im no expert but surely when a 250 ton plane hit the water[at any speed] theres going to be damage.if its under the sea I think they would have found some debris somewhere. for mymoney its been hijacked and flown to a safe space? my biggest concern is what happens next?
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Post by britsabroad on Mar 19, 2014 11:22:05 GMT
I think a question the aviation industry seriously needs to answer after this is why the fuck can a planes transponder be turned off by a pilot in flight? What legitimate reason is there that any comercial airliner would want to be invisible to radar? Surely this should be stuck on and cant be switched off until a plane is on the ground. Every electrical system needs to have a kill switch in case of fire, transponder included. They also need to be able to turn it off if there's congestion and air traffic control asks them to. They also need to be able to turn it off when the plane is on the ground so it doesn't confuse ATC radar. Plenty of reasons, in other words.
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Post by adi on Mar 19, 2014 11:23:47 GMT
It's under the sea. Whether it was hijacked. Whether it was pilot/co-pilot suicide Whether it was external hacking (seems massively unlikely) But the oddest thing, if it did fly for another 7 hours ... is that it can't have flown over land. Even if everyone had been well behaved and switched off on take off; after the original flight time expired - even plus an hour or two! - surely some passenger or crew would have turned on their smartphone / tablet? I am assuming such records have been checked?! Given that no one did, the only plausible explanation is that they had no signal ... the only two ways that seems possible are: They were over the sea. The "hijackers" confiscated every comms device (or had a jammer) on the plane When you start to tot it all up, if it was hijacked it is the most elaborate and complex hijacking ever. And to what purpose? The only sensible target would have been an hour or less from where they took over the plane. Even if you imagine that somehow the crew / passengers prevented that, why would the plane then fly on for 7 hours?! So I think my current best guess is pilot / co-pilot suicide ... absolutely tragic if it took a 7 hour flight to accomplish that ... imagine being on board and banging on that cockpit door ... im no expert but surely when a 250 ton plane hit the water[at any speed] theres going to be damage.if its under the sea I think they would have found some debris somewhere. for mymoney its been hijacked and flown to a safe space? my biggest concern is what happens next? You would expect debris/luggage etc but how much and given the search area it is still a possibility. I'm hoping it gets found before it's used for a more lethal mission.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 19, 2014 11:51:50 GMT
^^^ Correct. The probable search area - that's probable, not certain; is roughly the size of Australia! Even a week ago it would have been the proverbial needle ... this much time elapsed currents and whatever could have dragged it all over the place. However, given reasonable weather and sea conditions, the black box can be picked up a hundred kilometres away, or more. In the end, it is that they are most likely to locate (if they locate anything at all) LATEST: It is now thought that "someone other than the flight crew" (passenger?) altered course and/or switched off the comms gear. Reports by 10+ eyewitnesses in the Maldives (the Maldives, FFS!!?) claim they saw a low flying plane; but Malaysian Authorities say the reports are untrue (timings were "suspect"). The Vietnamese also say their military "may have detected the plane", turning West (back across Malaysia), shortly after contact was lost. Edit: Oh, and this little gem ... via the BBC "[Malaysian Authorities] have received passengers' background checks from all countries apart from Ukraine and Russia," - There were two Ukrainians and one Russian on the plane. Smokescreen for Vlad? I wonder whether it would be possible for someone "on the ground" to somehow fake the signal that was picked up by the satellite? This would have allowed a landing much closer to the point it went missing; but send the world on a wild goose chase across a few million square kilometres. All that written; sadly, I still think it's most likely that it's under the sea.
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Post by greenhoff74 on Mar 19, 2014 14:45:12 GMT
I think they are all dead, I mean why no messages from the passengers, the number of smartphones owned by people on that plane and nothing is heard, lots of those phones can be located by GPS too.
I find it very strange that there's no messages at all, it points to them all being at the bottom of the sea to me, if they went over the Indian Ocean they probably wouldn't get any phone signal at that point anyway.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 19, 2014 16:33:14 GMT
interesting....... www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/19/mh370-electrical-fireFire is 'simplest theory' for missing Malaysian plane TECHNOLOGY 19 MARCH 14 by CHRIS GOODFELLOW Chris Goodfellow has 20 years experience as a Canadian Class-1 instrumented-rated pilot for multi-engine planes. His theory on what happened to MH370 first appeared on Google+. We've copyedited it with his permission. There has been a lot of speculation about Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Terrorism, hijacking, meteors. I cannot believe the analysis on CNN; it's almost disturbing. I tend to look for a simpler explanation, and I find it with the 13,000-foot runway at Pulau Langkawi. We know the story of MH370: A loaded Boeing 777 departs at midnight from Kuala Lumpur, headed to Beijing. A hot night. A heavy aircraft. About an hour out, across the gulf toward Vietnam, the plane goes dark, meaning the transponder and secondary radar tracking go off. Two days later we hear reports that Malaysian military radar (which is a primary radar, meaning the plane is tracked by reflection rather than by transponder interrogation response) has tracked the plane on a southwesterly course back across the Malay Peninsula into the Strait of Malacca. The left turn is the key here. Zaharie Ahmad Shah was a very experienced senior captain with 18,000 hours of flight time. We old pilots were drilled to know what is the closest airport of safe harbor while in cruise. Airports behind us, airports abeam us, and airports ahead of us. They're always in our head. Always. If something happens, you don't want to be thinking about what are you going to do -- you already know what you are going to do. When I saw that left turn with a direct heading, I instinctively knew he was heading for an airport. He was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi, a 13,000-foot airstrip with an approach over water and no obstacles. The captain did not turn back to Kuala Lampur because he knew he had 8,000-foot ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier toward Langkawi, which also was closer. Take a look at this airport on Google Earth. The pilot did all the right things. He was confronted by some major event onboard that made him make an immediate turn to the closest, safest airport. When I heard this I immediately brought up Google Earth and searched for airports in proximity to the track toward the southwest. For me, the loss of transponders and communications makes perfect sense in a fire. And there most likely was an electrical fire. In the case of a fire, the first response is to pull the main busses and restore circuits one-by-one until you have isolated the bad one. If they pulled the busses, the plane would go silent. It probably was a serious event and the flight crew was occupied with controlling the plane and trying to fight the fire. Aviate, navigate, and lastly, communicate is the mantra in such situations. There are two types of fires. An electrical fire might not be as fast and furious, and there may or may not be incapacitating smoke. However there is the possibility, given the timeline, that there was an overheat on one of the front landing gear tyres, it blew on takeoff and started slowly burning. Yes, this happens with underinflated tires. Remember: Heavy plane, hot night, sea level, long-run takeoff. There was a well known accident in Nigeria of a DC8 that had a landing gear fire on takeoff. Once going, a tyre fire would produce horrific, incapacitating smoke. Yes, pilots have access to oxygen masks, but this is a no-no with fire. Most have access to a smoke hood with a filter, but this will last only a few minutes depending on the smoke level. (I used to carry one in my flight bag, and I still carry one in my briefcase when I fly.) What I think happened is the flight crew was overcome by smoke and the plane continued on the heading, probably on George (autopilot), until it ran out of fuel or the fire destroyed the control surfaces and it crashed. You will find it along that route -- looking elsewhere is pointless. Ongoing speculation of a hijacking and/or murder-suicide and that there was a flight engineer on board does not sway me in favour of foul play until I am presented with evidence of foul play. We know there was a last voice transmission that, from a pilot's point of view, was entirely normal. "Good night" is customary on a hand-off to a new air traffic control. The "good night" also strongly indicates to me that all was OK on the flight deck. Remember, there are many ways a pilot can communicate distress. A hijack code or even transponder code off by one digit would alert ATC that something was wrong. Every good pilot knows keying an SOS over the mike always is an option. Even three short clicks would raise an alert. So I conclude that at the point of voice transmission all was perceived as well on the flight deck by the pilots. But things could have been in the process of going wrong, unknown to the pilots. Evidently the ACARS went inoperative some time before. Disabling the ACARS is not easy, as pointed out. This leads me to believe more in an electrical problem or an electrical fire than a manual shutdown. I suggest the pilots probably were not aware ACARS was not transmitting. As for the reports of altitude fluctuations, given that this was not transponder-generated data but primary radar at maybe 200 miles, the azimuth readings can be affected by a lot of atmospherics and I would not have high confidence in this being totally reliable. But let's accept for a minute that the pilot may have ascended to 45,000 feet in a last-ditch effort to quell a fire by seeking the lowest level of oxygen. That is an acceptable scenario. At 45,000 feet, it would be tough to keep this aircraft stable, as the flight envelope is very narrow and loss of control in a stall is entirely possible. The aircraft is at the top of its operational ceiling. The reported rapid rates of descent could have been generated by a stall, followed by a recovery at 25,000 feet. The pilot may even have been diving to extinguish flames. But going to 45,000 feet in a hijack scenario doesn't make any good sense to me. Regarding the additional flying time: On departing Kuala Lumpur, Flight 370 would have had fuel for Beijing and an alternate destination, probably Shanghai, plus 45 minutes -- say, 8 hours. Maybe more. He burned 20-25 percent in the first hour with takeoff and the climb to cruise. So when the turn was made toward Langkawi, he would have had six hours or more worth of fuel. This correlates nicely with the Inmarsat data pings being received until fuel exhaustion. The now-known continued flight until time of fuel exhaustion only confirms to me that the crew was incapacitated and the flight continued on deep into the south Indian ocean. There is no point speculating further until more evidence surfaces, but in the meantime it serves no purpose to malign pilots who may well have been in a struggle to save this aircraft from a fire or other serious mechanical issue. Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah was a hero struggling with an impossible situation trying to get that plane to Langkawi. There is no doubt in my mind. That's the reason for the turn and direct route. A hijacking would not have made that deliberate left turn with a direct heading for Langkawi. It probably would have weaved around a bit until the hijackers decided where they were taking it. Surprisingly, none of the reporters, officials, or other pilots interviewed have looked at this from the pilot's viewpoint: If something went wrong, where would he go? Thanks to Google Earth I spotted Langkawi in about 30 seconds, zoomed in and saw how long the runway was and I just instinctively knew this pilot knew this airport. He had probably flown there many times. Fire in an aircraft demands one thing: Get the machine on the ground as soon as possible. There are two well-remembered experiences in my memory. The AirCanada DC9 which landed, I believe, in Columbus, Ohio in the 1980s. That pilot delayed descent and bypassed several airports. He didn't instinctively know the closest airports. He got it on the ground eventually, but lost 30-odd souls. The 1998 crash of Swissair DC-10 off Nova Scotia was another example of heroic pilots. They were 15 minutes out of Halifax but the fire overcame them and they had to ditch in the ocean. They simply ran out of time. That fire incidentally started when the aircraft was about an hour out of Kennedy. Guess what? The transponders and communications were shut off as they pulled the busses. Get on Google Earth and type in Pulau Langkawi and then look at it in relation to the radar track heading. Two plus two equals four. For me, that is the simple explanation why it turned and headed in that direction. Smart pilot. He just didn't have the time.
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Post by Gods on Mar 19, 2014 19:34:31 GMT
There is something about the way the author of this piece sounds so "needy" in wanting us to believe his interpretation and so "certain" when he really can't be that makes me think he has no idea at all but he does have an agenda. He wants us to believe that he is just a fellow pilot indulging in a little speculation but it all just sounds too desperate for that somehow.
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Post by cartman123 on Mar 20, 2014 0:35:12 GMT
The fire theory is laughable.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2014 0:47:41 GMT
If the plane flew on for several hours then it seems most likely that this was not a suicide attempt. It seems more like a mechanical failure preventing change of course or descent due to catastrophic instrument failure.
I'm not sure if the plane will ever be found as the wreckage will be spread over thousands of square miles. It could go down as one of those unexplained mysteries that we will never get to the bottom of.....
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2014 1:59:31 GMT
FIRE! www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-echochambers-26640114Nah - Though I should note, this makes it an identical theory to every other theory we're reading! Pilot-Suicide: I have still to see any good reason why a pilot would decide to do that, but rather than nose dive for the sea let the plane sort it out for him in 7 or 8 hours time. Still possible but seems illogical - and it seems unlikely any cry for help would be heard. What is needed now: What the world needs - hopefully from the Vietnamese military - is the height that the plane was at when they detected it "heading west". 30,000 ft would almost certainly mean there was "no disaster" that the crew were fighting. 10,000 ft and there was an issue that they were trying to deal with (decompression ... at 10,000 ft a passenger can breathe). Day 13 ... Who would want to be a relative?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2014 5:27:06 GMT
All over the news now is that the Aussies have spotted wreckage off Perth that could be linked to aircraft debris...
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2014 7:26:09 GMT
All over the news now is that the Aussies have spotted wreckage off Perth that could be linked to aircraft debris... www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26659951Image of possible debris is from satellite - So it could be anything (24m long). US/Aussie/NZ ships & planes enroute. I think I probably hope, for the sake of the relatives, that this is it.
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Post by Gods on Mar 20, 2014 9:38:02 GMT
All over the news now is that the Aussies have spotted wreckage off Perth that could be linked to aircraft debris... I love the way they are calling it "off Perth" like someone could take out a pedalow and go have a look at it. Actually it is 2,500km "off Perth"!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2014 10:04:36 GMT
interesting....... www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-03/19/mh370-electrical-fireFire is 'simplest theory' for missing Malaysian plane TECHNOLOGY 19 MARCH 14 by CHRIS GOODFELLOW Chris Goodfellow has 20 years experience as a Canadian Class-1 instrumented-rated pilot for multi-engine planes. His theory on what happened to MH370 first appeared on Google+. We've copyedited it with his permission. There has been a lot of speculation about Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Terrorism, hijacking, meteors. I cannot believe the analysis on CNN; it's almost disturbing. I tend to look for a simpler explanation, and I find it with the 13,000-foot runway at Pulau Langkawi. We know the story of MH370: A loaded Boeing 777 departs at midnight from Kuala Lumpur, headed to Beijing. A hot night. A heavy aircraft. About an hour out, across the gulf toward Vietnam, the plane goes dark, meaning the transponder and secondary radar tracking go off. Two days later we hear reports that Malaysian military radar (which is a primary radar, meaning the plane is tracked by reflection rather than by transponder interrogation response) has tracked the plane on a southwesterly course back across the Malay Peninsula into the Strait of Malacca. The left turn is the key here. Zaharie Ahmad Shah was a very experienced senior captain with 18,000 hours of flight time. We old pilots were drilled to know what is the closest airport of safe harbor while in cruise. Airports behind us, airports abeam us, and airports ahead of us. They're always in our head. Always. If something happens, you don't want to be thinking about what are you going to do -- you already know what you are going to do. When I saw that left turn with a direct heading, I instinctively knew he was heading for an airport. He was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi, a 13,000-foot airstrip with an approach over water and no obstacles. The captain did not turn back to Kuala Lampur because he knew he had 8,000-foot ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier toward Langkawi, which also was closer. Take a look at this airport on Google Earth. The pilot did all the right things. He was confronted by some major event onboard that made him make an immediate turn to the closest, safest airport. When I heard this I immediately brought up Google Earth and searched for airports in proximity to the track toward the southwest. For me, the loss of transponders and communications makes perfect sense in a fire. And there most likely was an electrical fire. In the case of a fire, the first response is to pull the main busses and restore circuits one-by-one until you have isolated the bad one. If they pulled the busses, the plane would go silent. It probably was a serious event and the flight crew was occupied with controlling the plane and trying to fight the fire. Aviate, navigate, and lastly, communicate is the mantra in such situations. There are two types of fires. An electrical fire might not be as fast and furious, and there may or may not be incapacitating smoke. However there is the possibility, given the timeline, that there was an overheat on one of the front landing gear tyres, it blew on takeoff and started slowly burning. Yes, this happens with underinflated tires. Remember: Heavy plane, hot night, sea level, long-run takeoff. There was a well known accident in Nigeria of a DC8 that had a landing gear fire on takeoff. Once going, a tyre fire would produce horrific, incapacitating smoke. Yes, pilots have access to oxygen masks, but this is a no-no with fire. Most have access to a smoke hood with a filter, but this will last only a few minutes depending on the smoke level. (I used to carry one in my flight bag, and I still carry one in my briefcase when I fly.) What I think happened is the flight crew was overcome by smoke and the plane continued on the heading, probably on George (autopilot), until it ran out of fuel or the fire destroyed the control surfaces and it crashed. You will find it along that route -- looking elsewhere is pointless. Ongoing speculation of a hijacking and/or murder-suicide and that there was a flight engineer on board does not sway me in favour of foul play until I am presented with evidence of foul play. We know there was a last voice transmission that, from a pilot's point of view, was entirely normal. "Good night" is customary on a hand-off to a new air traffic control. The "good night" also strongly indicates to me that all was OK on the flight deck. Remember, there are many ways a pilot can communicate distress. A hijack code or even transponder code off by one digit would alert ATC that something was wrong. Every good pilot knows keying an SOS over the mike always is an option. Even three short clicks would raise an alert. So I conclude that at the point of voice transmission all was perceived as well on the flight deck by the pilots. But things could have been in the process of going wrong, unknown to the pilots. Evidently the ACARS went inoperative some time before. Disabling the ACARS is not easy, as pointed out. This leads me to believe more in an electrical problem or an electrical fire than a manual shutdown. I suggest the pilots probably were not aware ACARS was not transmitting. As for the reports of altitude fluctuations, given that this was not transponder-generated data but primary radar at maybe 200 miles, the azimuth readings can be affected by a lot of atmospherics and I would not have high confidence in this being totally reliable. But let's accept for a minute that the pilot may have ascended to 45,000 feet in a last-ditch effort to quell a fire by seeking the lowest level of oxygen. That is an acceptable scenario. At 45,000 feet, it would be tough to keep this aircraft stable, as the flight envelope is very narrow and loss of control in a stall is entirely possible. The aircraft is at the top of its operational ceiling. The reported rapid rates of descent could have been generated by a stall, followed by a recovery at 25,000 feet. The pilot may even have been diving to extinguish flames. But going to 45,000 feet in a hijack scenario doesn't make any good sense to me. Regarding the additional flying time: On departing Kuala Lumpur, Flight 370 would have had fuel for Beijing and an alternate destination, probably Shanghai, plus 45 minutes -- say, 8 hours. Maybe more. He burned 20-25 percent in the first hour with takeoff and the climb to cruise. So when the turn was made toward Langkawi, he would have had six hours or more worth of fuel. This correlates nicely with the Inmarsat data pings being received until fuel exhaustion. The now-known continued flight until time of fuel exhaustion only confirms to me that the crew was incapacitated and the flight continued on deep into the south Indian ocean. There is no point speculating further until more evidence surfaces, but in the meantime it serves no purpose to malign pilots who may well have been in a struggle to save this aircraft from a fire or other serious mechanical issue. Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah was a hero struggling with an impossible situation trying to get that plane to Langkawi. There is no doubt in my mind. That's the reason for the turn and direct route. A hijacking would not have made that deliberate left turn with a direct heading for Langkawi. It probably would have weaved around a bit until the hijackers decided where they were taking it. Surprisingly, none of the reporters, officials, or other pilots interviewed have looked at this from the pilot's viewpoint: If something went wrong, where would he go? Thanks to Google Earth I spotted Langkawi in about 30 seconds, zoomed in and saw how long the runway was and I just instinctively knew this pilot knew this airport. He had probably flown there many times. Fire in an aircraft demands one thing: Get the machine on the ground as soon as possible. There are two well-remembered experiences in my memory. The AirCanada DC9 which landed, I believe, in Columbus, Ohio in the 1980s. That pilot delayed descent and bypassed several airports. He didn't instinctively know the closest airports. He got it on the ground eventually, but lost 30-odd souls. The 1998 crash of Swissair DC-10 off Nova Scotia was another example of heroic pilots. They were 15 minutes out of Halifax but the fire overcame them and they had to ditch in the ocean. They simply ran out of time. That fire incidentally started when the aircraft was about an hour out of Kennedy. Guess what? The transponders and communications were shut off as they pulled the busses. Get on Google Earth and type in Pulau Langkawi and then look at it in relation to the radar track heading. Two plus two equals four. For me, that is the simple explanation why it turned and headed in that direction. Smart pilot. He just didn't have the time. Millsy, indulge me for a moment. Why do you write such MASSIVELY LONG messages? For me, writing is a skill. Getting one's point across using the fewest possible words is an act of respect and kindness to other posters. I'd like to read what you have written but I haven't got enough time. Good code (as in software) uses less lines than average code. Precis your stuff down, because I think you have something to say, but i'll never know because I see all that text and think "I cant read that" wonder where the points are. Try imposing a 5 line limit on yourself, whilst delivering the same message. Make it punchy!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2014 13:09:07 GMT
Millsy, indulge me for a moment. Why do you write such MASSIVELY LONG messages? For me, writing is a skill. Getting one's point across using the fewest possible words is an act of respect and kindness to other posters. I'd like to read what you have written but I haven't got enough time. Good code (as in software) uses less lines than average code. Precis your stuff down, because I think you have something to say, but i'll never know because I see all that text and think "I cant read that" wonder where the points are. Try imposing a 5 line limit on yourself, whilst delivering the same message. Make it punchy! (To an extent) Efficient coding, yes **************; but this isn't coding. I guess millsy could have just posted the link, and left it there, rather than the whole article as well ... but hey (I'm not the moderator getting banged up! ) I only ever write to be read, if I am getting paid for it; otherwise I write for enjoyment. It's not a sport, **************; if it's anything, it's art UPDATE: Plane-1 has returned to Oz. No sign of debris. Sadly, Aussie and NZ military talking heads are "downplaying the excitement". More planes en-route.
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Post by gazscfc on Mar 20, 2014 13:28:27 GMT
Millsy, indulge me for a moment. Why do you write such MASSIVELY LONG messages? Try imposing a 5 line limit on yourself, whilst delivering the same message. Make it punchy! What's worse is when people include massive posts in their reply.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2014 15:22:45 GMT
I still think its been hijacked and hidden somewhere? hopefully the passengers are being held captive while their captors decide what to do with them. my biggest concern is what they intend to do with a boeing 777.
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Post by boothenpaddock86 on Mar 20, 2014 21:19:49 GMT
I still think its been hijacked and hidden somewhere? hopefully the passengers are being held captive while their captors decide what to do with them. my biggest concern is what they intend to do with a boeing 777. Could be right mate and the authoritys are taking us on a wild goose chase.but what would be the reason for this? Chinese secrecy ? Malaysian government already held back information relating to the flight duration..seems very unusual
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Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2014 2:23:27 GMT
I still think its been hijacked and hidden somewhere? hopefully the passengers are being held captive while their captors decide what to do with them. my biggest concern is what they intend to do with a boeing 777. Could be right mate and the authoritys are taking us on a wild goose chase.but what would be the reason for this? Chinese secrecy ? Malaysian government already held back information relating to the flight duration..seems very unusual Everything about the flight duration information is a bit "odd". Apparently the information comes from the National Transportation Board of America. But apparently they won't talk directly about quite how they gathered it (neither will Immarsat, who operate the satellite in question). The signal is being described as a hand shake, between the satellite system and one of the transponder systems, on the plane, which was switched off. Without beating about the bush ... then it wasn't switched off. Disabled, muted, apparently disengaged ... it could have been described as a host of things; but if it was handshaking with the satellite it would have been communicating with under normal circumstances, then it wasn't off. I wonder whether the apparent "secrecy" is down to the fact that few in the airline industry knew these handshakes existed? It would be an interesting fail-safe "tracking" system; post 9/11 and such
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Post by Gods on Mar 21, 2014 10:27:09 GMT
This debris 1,500 miles off the coast of Perth in the South India sea is going to be it right?
Everything makes me think so.
1.The Australian PM talking about in it Parliament 2.Lots of words of caution but the rest of the search has gone quiet 3.Main piece of debris is 24 meters bigger than any of those containers which routinely float about in the sea which have fallen from ships 4.It's about the distance where the plane ran out of fuel.
I think this will be it.
The water is a gob smacking 10,000 feet deep at that point though they say so anything which has sunk to the bottom would take some retrieving!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2014 13:19:45 GMT
they seem to be back tracking on that theory, dont forget its a massive sea so theres bound to be stuff floating around it somewhere. i know i will be very nervous next time i step on a plane and wont be happy until its found.
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