If accurate, this pretty much eliminates an massive catastrophic mechanical/electrical failure explanation.

passing on.

I feel so bad for the families and friends and would like to know if it were mechanical and something to check on other planes, or human caused.

intel, surveillance, spying, etc.

Read an interesting theory on that one earlier. It went something like this:

1. Electrical fire started in the cockpit, taking out primary radio communications.
2. Pilot turned the aircraft around in an attempt to go back for help, before being killed, incapacitated, or chased out of the cockpit.
3. Fire burned through enough of the cockpit to shut down other electrical systems, including cabin pressurization controls.
4. Oxygen levels dropped, knocking out the passengers and dropping the fire to a smolder.
5. The plane flew on under autopilot until the fire either spread far enough to take it out of the sky, or the jet ran out of fuel.

I don't know enough about the 777's electrical systems to know how plausible this is, but at a 10,000 foot level it sounds as plausible as any other theory.

Why would a hijacker turn systems off a little at a time? That makes no sense.

Systems going off over a period of time suggests a disintegrating situation on board.

Because the pilot was very experienced, and if there was a mechanical problem serious enough to shut down ACARS, the pilot would have reacted before the transponder signal went. Instead, they seem to be saying they got the ACARS shutdown long before they had a radio handover communication with the pilot, after which the transponder was shut off or failed. Plus the ACARS system never failed, but pinged for hours afterwards.

Subang ATC (if I have that correct) gave handover at 1:21. Around 1:30 another pilot reported that he had radioed the plane to tell it to contact Ho Chi Minh ATC, which was the "mumbling/static report":
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/03/08/pilot-on-way-to-japan-says-he-made-contact-with-missing-malaysian-flight/

That's because the Vietnamese ATC hadn't established contact.

This doesn't fit with the mechanical failure theory. It's also hard to make it fit into the hypoxia/accidental transponder shutoff theory, because of the time frame.

Of course this report could be false, but it does not now seem that it is false. The very precise timing of the ACARS shutdown given either means that they received a shutdown packet or that they have a radar track still at that point that shows that ACARS should have transmitted but it didn't. And that really fits into the "intentional action" scenario, because ACARS was shut down in order to prevent the transmission which would give information about a diversion from flight plan, but the transponder was shut down later to buy a few minutes of ATC dead time (during the handover from Subang to Ho Chi Minh).

If you want to claim this sequential shutdown supports a terrorist theory, they you will have to explain why a terrorist/hijacker would do it that way and why he would want to keep the plane flying 4 hours without communication and without a plan to land it. Terrorists tend to go to Allah quickly. Why drag it out?

If it was a hijacking, he would have kept the communication channels open to negotiate a landing.

If it was a terror act, he would have tried to crash the plane as quickly as possible doing the maximum damage. He sure wouldn't just fly out into the Indian Ocean. He's either crash into the ocean straightaway or else he'd head for a population center to smash some buildings.

A plane flying 4 hours without apparent direction or communication is most likely a massive equipment failure. And as I pointed out later in the thread, it is normal for equipment failures to unravel progressively -- like the Space Shuttle Columbia. There isn't a shred of evidence of a terror act here at this point and we shouldn't be so paranoid as to jump to conclusions like that.

There is no evidence of a bombing. There could have been a bomb, but we have no evidence of that.
There are no groups claiming credit for it.
It isn't a particularly likely target for terrorism.
The manner of the flight (as well as we know it) isn't at all consistent with how terrorists have acted in the past.
And if it was terrorism, who was terrorized? At this point, only the victims on board. That isn't the goal of terrorism.

Any legitimate assessment must consider more potential scenarios than simply taking an airliner to hold hostages for some sort of ransom or as a lever for political demands.

The aircraft itself is a perfect delivery system for a nuclear weapon. It could rather easily be used to replace another similar aircraft in route to any desired destination. Take down the real one and slip the stolen one in using the downed aircraft's idents.

What do you know of the Uyghur/China conflict and how it is viewed in that region of the world?

I don't know what is going on, but I do know for certain that it is extremely premature to rule out the possibility all observed behavior is a result of deliberate action on the part of bad actors.

I don't think I ruled out anything. I simply said there isn't a shred of evidence that supports the idea that there was a terrorist/hijacker in control. And there most certainly isn't any evidence that supports the idea that this craft has been exchanged with another 777 full of nukylar stuff and, I don't know, soon to return to the skies as a flying dirty bomb.

If that Malaysian Air flight were to resume today, don't you think somebody might ask a few questions?

But you are correct. We can't rule that out.

And we cannot rule out the possibility that the plane inadvertently flew into a wormhole and is now in a different galaxy, maybe in a different universe altogether.

But for people who are looking at the most likely situation, it is a progressive equipment failure event.

Experts are rapidly shifting their focus to the most likely situation being a hijacking.

Which I'm convinced it is.

What hijacker has not either tried to negotiate or else cause devastating damage? Can you name one hijacker who turned off communications and then just headed out to sea? What would be the point of that. And why take 4 hours to do it?

Wonder how much those go for on the international terrorism market these days?

It makes life so much more interesting than just acknowledging uncomfortable information.

The fact that the aircraft is not under the control of properly authorized personal was definitively established when a military system tasked with protecting that nation saw an unidentified large aircraft on their radar screen and it matched a trajectory, position and radar signature of a civilian airliner that had gone dark.

They didn't just ignore it. As that Malaysian official said - "There is only confusion if you want to see confusion"

But now it makes sense. Hijackers took the plane. It landed safely on some hidden grass strip somewhere. And it is in safekeeping because in 6 months, it will get a new paint job and be filled with nukylar material, and then exchanged with another jet, and the purpose for that exchange would be ...

Well I'll admit I am lost on that last point, but I am with you on the rest of the story.

You deserve far more credit for intelligence than that excuse allows.
Remember the Uyghurs that just killed 29 people in the train station in China? Why'd they do that?

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

http://www.towson.edu/polsci/ppp/sp97/terror/goals.html

that seem to indicate an intentional diversion, because it now seems almost impossible that communications were lost due to system failure. I agree that some mechanical problem was the first most likely explanation, and it is only upon being just about forced to rule that entirely out that one winds up with this scenario.

But that doesn't provide an explanation for what happened, although I don't think either hijackers or terrorists think in ways that are that understandable to normal people with normal ethical standards.

So I agree with all your assertions, except that mechanical problems could produce this sequence of events. It could not.

What we now know is that by the time the Japan flight contacted MH370 at around 1:30 at the behest of Ho Chi Minh ATC to tell it MH370 to phone home, there had been more than a 20 minute sequence of ordered rather than erratic events that add up to an intentional diversion, and this is then followed by a more than 4 hour sequence during which the plane flew far off its assigned route but appeared to be following a route toward Europe or the ME guided by navigational points.
http://english.astroawani.com/news/show/mh370-military-radar-showed-aircraft-deliberately-flying-towards-andaman-islands-reuters-31841

So the authorities are down to gathering all the information they can glean as to what DID happen.

I assume that eventually they will find the plane and get more information as to what happened, but I doubt it will ever make "sense" to us.

That is a plausible, certainly. And I don't know the specs either, but we do have some pilots at DU who might know...



Just hoping that somehow, they are alive somewhere and this can be resolved. Dead is more likely with the scenario you described, though.

The theory is based on events that have taken other aircraft down in the past. Can a fire erupt quickly enough to incapacitate the flight crew? Yes, it's happened before. Can a fire take out specific aircraft systems while leaving others operational? Yes, it's happened before. Can a smoldering fire in a low oxygen environment continue to do damage? Sure, ask any firefighter. A fire in a low oxygen environment can burn for hours or days, slowly spreading through the remaining combustible material.

For the theory to work, the fire only needs to have done two things: 1) Prevented the flight crew from sending a distress call, which we know is ENTIRELY possible from previous crashes. 2) Eliminated cabin pressurization. In fact, this step may not have even been needed. The original site that I picked this theory up at contained a reply by a pilot stating that many older pilots were once taught to depressurize the cabin in response to a major onboard fire, to reduce the amount of oxygen available to it and slow it down. In a real disaster, the crew might have depressurized the cabin THEMSELVES in a desperate attempt to get the flames under control. But even without this step, it's plausible that an onboard fire could have rapidly eliminated the cabin pressurization systems on its own.

If the oxygen was cut off before the aircraft skin was breached, the fire would have slowed to a crawl and the flames would have almost vanished. They would have continued to burn slowly, fed only by the chemicals outgassed from the materials in the aircraft. In that condition, the flames would have slowly spread for hours, taking out system after system. If it didn't run out of fuel first, it would have eventually taken out the autopilot or breached the aircrafts skin, either of which would have brought it down.

.....they have a SAT phone in cockpit and radio and cel phones... with a fire blazing they'd be very anxious to contact the ground and ready the crash trucks and clear the airspace at the nearest field. Plus after smelling smoke they'd have time to done the masks and make a quick MAYDAY.

If not air piracy either gone wrong or hidden in Somalia, Yemen, etc.. I have to go with the hypoxia theory since that would preclude any contact, fire not so much.

Used to hide plane ...???

The Boeing 777-300, at MTOW (Maximum Takeoff Weight), needs a runway that is 11,200 ft long; at MLW (Maximum Landing Weight), needs a runway that is 8,100 ft long.
Here.

That would mean the hijacking failed for some reason.. perhaps the passengers stormed the cabin.. like the 911 flight that crashed in PA.

If it had land almost any place with a long enough runway, it would seem that at least one cell phone on board would have worked.

That did not believe the pilots when they told them that the plane did not have the fuel to reach Australia. It made it to some islands just north of Madagascar before it ran dry, close enough that once the pilot made a sea landing, some of the passengers were saved.

If hijackers of this plane thought the plane could make it to Iran, for instance, it would have run out of fuel over the Indian Ocean.

I would be willing to bet there is not a single runway on earth that is long enough to land a 777, that does not have air traffic control. Even if you turn off the transponder, ground radar will find you when you are approaching a large airport (or over populated areas), and there will be ATC, and hundreds of witnesses. You could probably find a small airport to land and hide a Cessna 172, but not a 777.

Perhaps other nations set up their highway systems the same?

And there would be no air traffic control tower there. Nor would there be at a private airport, nor a nice wide stretch of open beach or land. And can't one fly under radar, especially in a remote area where there'd be no need for controlling air traffic?

Not saying that your idea isn't a very good one, though. Just thinking this out. Quite a puzzle going on with this.

That said, at one point if you had to set a plane down on a highway, you might be able to find a suitable stretch of road (although a road that is straight for 1 mile with no obstructions might be tough to find, even in remote areas.

Its not impossible to avoid radar. Australia would be an easy choice. I guess what I'm having trouble seeing in these scenarios is the end game. If it was highjacked, why? Why has nobody come forward yet? I could understand a highjacking that went wrong, and crashed, but if it landed safely, wouldn't we have heard their demands by now?

...time to go over the maintenance logs with a fine tooth comb.

A fire might burn thru different systems at different times but I would think they would call in the 1st hint of smoke and declare a
emergency divert.

Hypoxia or air piracy gone wrong I think....be weird if shes on the ground somewhere in Somalia or Yemen, etc..

know enough to know it that's possible. Would it be possible to land it and hide it or would satellites have detected it by now? If that's possible then the families of those on board must really be on a roller coaster ride. I really feel for them.

You would want about 5,000 feet of runway. Thats a decently sized runway, and very likely to have Ground control towers that will spot a plane. Even if they don't have ground traffic control, there is probably air traffic control that would spot you (and they can spot you on their radar system even if you turn off your transponder).

You could technically land on a highway, or any straight road, but I don't know if you could find a highway that you could park a plane for a week noticed.

I think the odds of satellites spotting you is slim. It would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Avoiding Radar over the ocean is easy. Avoiding it over ground is very difficult (at least near major airports you could land at.)

A 747, which is bigger than a 777, safely landed at the wrong airport in Kansas a few months ago and then took off OK. That runway was about 3,200 feet. If you look at a map of the 4-mile radius from the last radar location (I think it's in this thread somewhere,) you'll see it is mostly ocean but covers as far as India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives to the west. Even Diego Garcia. There are thousands of small islands as well. All that would be needed is a fairly flat strip to land, and an area that vast would have many such places outside of populated areas.

The US keeps surveillance satellites over India but I don't know if they do more than detect missile launches.

The scary thing there is the hijackers could kill the passengers and then use the plane for something horrible.

many will learn a lot with this incident.

:boo:

search a lot more territory. I don't see how you get "be afraid. boo". Sorry.

Not much is known. The area is bigger now.

Thanks.

I've been trying to find out how much flying time was available based on the fuel load, and I finally have my answer.

There are a lot of hostile countries that plane could have made it to. Somalia, Iran & Pakistan, just to name a few.

Out of how many U.S. officials? Thousands and Thousands?

MALAYSIAN officials denied a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report that cited unnamed US investigators claiming that the missing plane had carried on flying for four hours after falling off the air traffic control radar.

Yesterday, Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said Malaysia Airlines (MAS) had verified with the aircraft's maker Boeing and engine supplier Rolls- Royce that the last time the plane transmitted data was at 1.07am local time last Saturday.

The Beijing-bound MH370 had taken off at 12.41am, but lost radio contact with air traffic control in Subang at about 1.30am. At 2.40am, the control tower reported the missing flight to MAS.

"Rolls-Royce and Boeing teams are here in Kuala Lumpur, and have worked with MAS and the investigations team since Sunday. This issue has never been raised," he told a packed press conference. "As far as Rolls-Royce and Boeing are concerned, those reports are inaccurate."

- See more at: http://www.stasiareport.com/the-big-story/asia-report/malaysia/story/mas-plane-did-not-fly-four-hours-says-malaysia-government-2#sthash.D5FukHu1.dpuf

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

This story just keeps getting weirder. Something is off here. I wish Boeing would come out and say whether they have information about the craft flying for hours after losing radio and transponder contact, not just the Malaysian government (again).

If the search moves into the Indian Ocean...third largest ocean and...deep.

Yikes.

There are plenty of examples of complex systems disintegrating in stages -- over a period of seconds, minutes, hours, or even months.

Perhaps these jokers never heard of the Space Shuttle Columbia. I guess because that catastrophe was 7 days in the making, that proves that it was actually terrorist on board the Columbia. Who knew?

"the final location was over water" - how fucking vague is that? The WSJ claims there were a series of pings, but however said that to them doesn't say where they led, apart from 'over water' and talk about target areas that are hundreds of miles west. Well, at normal cruising speed, 5 hours gets you thousands of miles away. I think these anonymous hints are pretty useless to us.

What the public knows the hijackers also know.

The less information the hijackers have about what authorities do know, the better.

because if it did, and was hijacked, the hijackers would know where it transmitted from.

But hijacking an aircraft and then trying to hide it doesn't make any sense. You make demands, you publicise your cause - you don't do it to make people and aircraft disappear.

That's what an unwanted leak looks like.

As for the, can I say "nontraditional" nature of the actions compared to past hijackings - that's what worries me most. It suggests they have longer term plans that are more complex. The answer I'd rate most probable in light of world events since 2001, is that they want the airplane as a platform for delivering a weapon.

Right after 9/11 a number of future scenarios were floated, and one of them was that we'd see little more terrorist activity for several years because part of the mindset of anyone planning an attack would include a desire to exceed the impact of 911.

I'm not that knowledgeable the area of possible weapons, but I'd think aircraft like the 777 has potential for several approaches centered around an airburst over a city. A full load of standard explosives over the center of Beijing would be the lowest level that might emerge. They could possibly be able to modify the aircraft and turn it into a very large MOAB - and there are obvious ways it could go up and get worse from there.

I think I'm out of this thread for a while; it is really starting to bum me out.

and you're so correct. This is what is the scary part. If this occurred the way our Govt believes to be thinking. This crime was not only brazen but smart as hell.

We must find this plane. We have no option.

...then steal one and hide it for later use. Still might have happened I suppose but seems convoluted.

There was a made for TV movie back in the 80's that was about media coverage of events and how they exist to make money by selling air time.


1 week after the plane disappeared. It crashed. It didn't. It may be somewhere off the flight path. It might not be. Experts and authorities say things, nothing confirmed or denied. Stay tuned!

To argue over the validity of anonymous hints is pretty useless. We all want to know what happened, for the people involved and their families, friends, in case it was something that might happen to another plane (mechanical) or someone did something on purpose to cause it.

It is odd in these closely connected via internet and spied on times to have a commercial airliner disappear. We are spied on. Jet disappears.

I miss the old days of newspapers, not instant news. I won't watch tv coverage, but do look online, hoping, like so many.



http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/14/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/

waiting patiently for the time when they most likely will have to furiously defend their product.

I can wish that Flight 370 was hijacked, for the sake of the passenger's families. All they have left now is hope, wafting above a vast sea of grief.

That plane failed to deliver the passengers to their expected destination. That's about all we have as absolute fact.

They probably don't even need the pilots anymore to actually fly planes these days.