Quote :

"No trace of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has been found since it vanished on March 8 with 239 people aboard. Investigators are increasingly convinced it was diverted perhaps thousands of miles off course by someone with deep knowledge of the Boeing 777-200ER and commercial navigation."

So, either the pilots, willingly or under duress, or terrorists who killed the pilots and did it. What about the passengers? I wonder what kind of hell people inside went through, in case it didn't just suddenly explode mid-air or crash in to the middle of the ocean.

If it is found, it will make for some awesome movies/books.

Quote :

"Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said that the search area in the northern and southern "corridors" totals 2.24 million square nautical miles (nearly 3 million square miles), or 7.7 million square kilometers. That's about the size of Australia. Twenty-six countries are involved in the hunt. Given the shift to the much wider search area, the US Navy says that it will use long-range naval aircraft to look for the plane, and send its destroyer, the USS Kidd, back to normal duties. Australia is leading the search efforts in the southern Indian Ocean. The northern search corridor includes countries with busy airspace that likely would have noticed an unidentified aircraft in their territory. China, India and Pakistan are among the nations that say they have seen no sign of the plane."

Quote :

"Aviation officials in Pakistan, India, and Central Asian countries Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan — as well as Taleban militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan — said they knew nothing about the whereabouts of the plane. “The idea that the plane flew through Indian airspace for several hours without anyone noticing is bizarre,” a defense ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taleban in Afghanistan, who are seeking to oust foreign troops and set up an Islamic state, said the missing plane had nothing to do with them. “It happened outside Afghanistan and you can see that even countries with very advanced equipment and facilities cannot figure out where it went,” he said. “So we also do not have any information as it is an external issue.”"

3/18/2014 10:21:18 AM

Quote :

"I wonder what kind of hell people inside went through, in case it didn't just suddenly explode mid-air or crash in to the middle of the ocean."

It was a red eye flight, so after dinner service I imagine most of the passengers would have been asleep. If handled correctly, whoever was in control of the plane could have depressurized the cabin and very few if any of the passengers/crew would have known.

3/18/2014 10:25:47 AM

^^^ what the hell does google have to do with turning the transponder off?

Turning a txpdr off isn't some big deal like it's being made out to be. There are some light airplanes that don't even have one. In America, they're only required for flying into class B or C airspace (major airports), or above 10k'.

I'm not saying it would be normally prudent, and it might have been against regulations where they were at, but it's just one more piece of equipment in the cockpit that you turn on or off as needed.

^ maybe...not sure how violently the px dump would be in a 777, or how noisy it would be. Actually, you could probably just turn off the bleed air to the pressurization system and let the px leak down slowly.

[Edited on March 18, 2014 at 10:31 AM. Reason : ]

3/18/2014 10:26:58 AM

I'm already grimacing over the shitty screenplays that are inspired by this over the next decade.

3/18/2014 10:44:14 AM

Quote :

"but it's just one more piece of equipment in the cockpit that you turn on or off as needed."

they said turning off one of them was a big deal that required turning off a breaker

3/18/2014 10:50:47 AM

usually the breakers are accessible to the pilots

3/18/2014 10:53:25 AM

they made it sound like its more involved than flipping a switch, that it involves accesing something you wouldn't do as part of normal operations. i.e. that its definitely not accidental and is a big deal

3/18/2014 11:00:09 AM

Quote :

"I'm already grimacing over the shitty screenplays that are inspired by this over the next decade. "

[movie trailer voiceover]In a world... where your whereabouts are tracked 24/7.... they never saw it coming... and never saw it again... from director m night slamalasian, FLIGHT 370[/m]

then the poster shows a radar blip and the tagline reads WHERE WILL THEY BURY THE SURVIVORS

3/18/2014 11:19:37 AM

almost forgot, more crazy talk, but goes to motive

MH370 picture exclusive: Pilot wears anti-government slogan t-shirt amid fears he hijacked missing jet
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/missing-malaysian-airlines-flight-mh370-3248001

Quote :

"Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah was a fervent supporter of his country's opposition leader who was jailed for homosexuality - illegal in Malaysia - only hours before flight MH370 vanished with 239 passengers and crew on board, the Sunday Mirror can reveal. And in a new twist, it emerged that the pilot's wife and three children moved out of the family's home the day before the plane's disappearance."

Malaysia Airline MH370: 9/11-style terror allegations resurface in case of lost plane
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10700652/Malaysia-Airline-MH370-911-style-terror-allegations-resurface-in-case-of-lost-plane.html

Quote :

"An al-Qaeda supergrass told a court last week that four to five Malaysian men had been planning to take control of a plane, using a bomb hidden in a shoe to blow open the cockpit door. Security experts said the evidence from a convicted British terrorist was “credible”. The supergrass said that he had met the Malaysian jihadists – one of whom was a pilot – in Afghanistan and given them a shoe bomb to use to take control of an aircraft."

Quote :

"Badat, who was jailed for 13 years in 2005 for his part in a conspiracy with the “shoe bomber” Richard Reid to blow up a transatlantic jet, had given similar evidence in 2012. In other words, his claims were first made long before the disappearance of Flight MH370. In the earlier case, during the trial of Adis Medunjanin, an American who was later convicted of conspiring to blow up New York subways, Badat told prosecutors of the Malaysian shoe bomb plot. Asked what he knew of the Malaysian group, he replied: “I learnt that they had a group, uh, ready to perform a similar hijacking to 9/11.” Asked if he helped them, he said: “I provided them with one of my shoes because both had been, uh, both had explosives inserted into them.”"

the interesting thing here isn't the shoe bomb part- but that there was talk of a group of Malaysian Islamists taking an airliner for several years, and supposedly a member of this group was actually a pilot...



So in protest of a government who jailed his buddy on politically motivated sodomy charges, could this guy be wacky enough to disappear this plane? He has done a damn good job at making the Malay government look foolish, that much is for sure.



[Edited on March 18, 2014 at 11:31 AM. Reason : .]

3/18/2014 11:28:22 AM

SUPERGRASS? WE'RE DOOMED. THE FESCUE WILL KILL US ALL!

3/18/2014 11:38:56 AM

Quote :

"grass gras/Submit noun noun: grass; plural noun: grasses 1. vegetation consisting of typically short plants with long narrow leaves, growing wild or cultivated on lawns and pasture, and as a fodder crop. synonyms: turf, sod; More ground covered with grass. "he sat down on the grass" pastureland. "the farms were mostly given over to grass" 2. the mainly herbaceous plant that constitutes grass, which has jointed stems and spikes of small, wind-pollinated flowers. 3. informal marijuana. synonyms: turf, sod; More 4. BRIT.informal a police informer. synonyms: turf, sod; More verb verb: grass; 3rd person present: grasses; past tense: grassed; past participle: grassed; gerund or present participle: grassing 1. cover (an area of ground) with grass. "hillsides so closely grassed over, they seem to be painted green" synonyms: turf, sod; More feed (livestock) with grass. 2. BRIT.informal inform the police of criminal activity or plans. "someone had grassed on the thieves" synonyms: turf, sod; More "

3/18/2014 11:42:20 AM

"pissing"

is more like it

jk

3/18/2014 11:42:49 AM

Dbl post


[Edited on March 18, 2014 at 12:47 PM. Reason : ]

3/18/2014 12:35:45 PM

^ 6, 7, 8

The breaker thing isn't referring to the transponder. The transponder is something that you turn on and off (or change modes on) every flight with a simple switch.

...not that pulling breakers is a big deal, either, per se. I couldn't even begin to guess how many breakers I've pulled in airplanes. The thing you're talking about, I think, is the system on modern jetliners that reports systems status via satcom.

I'm not saying that this case was normal, prudent, or not nefarious. I'm just saying that some stuff that's being portrayed as way out there is, in fact, routine.

Same goes for a pilot having a fairly involved flight sim at home. I don't think that's the norm, and it could well be nefarious in this case, but it's not all that bizarre. I've seen and heard of it before.

[Edited on March 18, 2014 at 12:47 PM. Reason : I would agree that it was not "normal" in this case, and was likely intentional]

3/18/2014 12:40:02 PM

So why would an Islamic Militant be angry over someone being in jail for being gay? That seems like a win for that team. Celebration hijacking?

3/18/2014 2:28:28 PM

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/

Nogt sure I buy it though...

He's saying:

1 - A fire disables the ACARS system
2 - Unaware of the fire, the pilot/co-pilot radios in and says everything is fine.
3 - The fire disables the transponder
4 - The pilots are too busy fighting the fire and/or the radio is disabled by the fire so they never call in again.

3/18/2014 2:32:34 PM

I still don't understand why people think that the 777 was flown north toward Central Asia. It's one thing for a giant aircraft to be missed or confused when it briefly skirted the second-rate air defense radar of small southeast Asian nations. However, flying a giant, nuclear bomber-sized plane directly over a country like India or China? Especially over heavily militarized, nuclear-armed regions like the Sino-Indian or Pakistani-Indian frontiers that are most likely covered by hardened, integrated air defense networks? No way those nations would not have responded to an "unusual radar signal".

3/18/2014 2:36:16 PM

The opposition leader was convicted of sodomy, but the widespread feeling among many Malays is that it was politically motivated, to prevent him from becoming the next leader after Mahathir.

3/18/2014 2:36:55 PM

also, i may be a victim of propaganda, but isn't pedophilia sodomy common in Afghanistan and similar places?

3/18/2014 2:40:13 PM

Common? It's the national fucking sport!

3/18/2014 2:42:02 PM

^^ Yes, it is, but then again, so is it among Catholic clergy all over the world, and among ultra-Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn and Israel.

3/18/2014 2:47:09 PM

Quote :

"I still don't understand why people think that the 777 was flown north toward Central Asia. It's one thing for a giant aircraft to be missed or confused when it briefly skirted the second-rate air defense radar of small southeast Asian nations. However, flying a giant, nuclear bomber-sized plane directly over a country like India or China? Especially over heavily militarized, nuclear-armed regions like the Sino-Indian or Pakistani-Indian frontiers that are most likely covered by hardened, integrated air defense networks? No way those nations would not have responded to an "unusual radar signal". "

Several interviewed security experts have laid out the case that, basically - assuming it followed a regularly traveled flight path that would have been commonplace to see a jet, and did not approach anywhere that might be considered threatening a known target, and given that it might have been passing through at cruising altitude overnight, that military ATC particularly wouldn't have bothered, and that it's possible these countries don't allocate resources or designate prioritization to have these radars watching main commercial air corridors 24/7/365 - what you are in disbelief of could be, in fact, entirely plausible.

3/18/2014 2:50:07 PM

^^well, the question was about mulsims and homosexuality. but i think the politically motivated theory makes sense.

3/18/2014 3:01:47 PM

^^yup

I've also read in multiple places that the missing plane ~could have~ shadowed another plane of similar size and gone undetected due to the way the transponder system works. Could have flown for hours that way with no one knowing.

3/18/2014 3:11:23 PM

good lord, CNN is milking the shit out of this story.

3/18/2014 4:06:01 PM

Would you expect otherwise?

3/18/2014 4:25:17 PM

^^^That is possible. It's a tactic that's been used in combat aviation for a long time for deception. It has nothing to do with the way the transponder works. Rather, it is due to the way a RADAR works.

RADARs have what is known as a "RADAR resolution cell", or RRC. It is a function of the vertical and horizontal beam width of the antenna, and the pulse width of the RADAR's transmissions. In other words, it increases in cross section as range increases, while depth remains constant (unless the transmission parametrics are altered).



Pretty much all radar design considerations are a compromise. You can build a RADAR of greater fidelity (i.e., smaller RRCs), at the expense of probability of detection, for example. A search RADAR like used for normal ATC doesn't normally need super fine fidelity, but they damn well want to be likely to pick up everything they can. For this reason, such RADARs have much larger RRCs than, say, a missile system's target tracker.

The RADAR can't distinguish between two objects within one RRC; this is also the principle by which self-protect chaff is used to break RADAR locks. If you were to fly in close enough formation with another aircraft, and were not transmitting any additional information or highlighting your position to ATC via your transponder (i.e., ATC RADAR not receiving responses to transponder interrogation, but only tracking RADAR energy reflected by the airplane), then ATC would not be able to distinguish the two aircraft due to physical limitations of their RADARs.

The only other thing that turning off the transponder would have to do with this would be that all passenger jets (and some other aircraft) have a system called Traffic Collision & Avoidance System (TCAS). It is actually integrated into the transponder system, and give you 360-degree proximity warnings to any other aircraft "squawking" with its transponder (i.e., with it turned on and transmitting). If the other aircraft has a TCAS equipped transponder, the two systems will actually communicate and instruct their respective pilots how to maneuver to avoid a collision. If you were attempting to covertly maneuver into close formation with another airliner, you would have to turn off your TCAS, or you would draw tons of attention to yourself by them, and probably trigger evasive action on their part. We used to turn off our transponder when aerial refueling so as to not freak out/annoy the shit out of the TCAS-equipped tanker crews.

An airliner doesn't have any rearward visibility, though. Once close in behind them, I don't think they'd ever know you were there. Some people were saying that the RADAR return would be brighter for 2 aircraft even if the RADAR was incapable of distinguishing 2 aircraft, but I don't buy it, at least not enough that anyone would ever notice. For one thing, those aircraft have such massive RADAR cross sections that they'd be bright, anyway. For another, one would already be highlighting its position with its transponder. I think it would be such a subtle difference that it would be very hard to tell. The "tell" would be to find the blip on the RADAR tapes not "squawking" anything and merging onto or diverging away from another RADAR track, if that's what happened. That could be extremely labor intensive, though, I would think...that's a lot of hours of tape from a lot of RADARs with a lot of blips to watch.


[Edited on March 18, 2014 at 4:45 PM. Reason : ]

3/18/2014 4:35:17 PM

I love it when you get all technical

3/18/2014 4:52:05 PM

whoops dbl post

[Edited on March 18, 2014 at 4:55 PM. Reason : .]

3/18/2014 4:54:49 PM

^^

3/18/2014 7:32:50 PM

feel terrible for the families.

3/18/2014 7:57:12 PM

Why? Claymation people aren't real.

3/18/2014 8:04:33 PM

Also, the picture on this page resembles a penis.

This is good times right here.

3/18/2014 8:05:43 PM

has this been posted?

http://gawker.com/flight-370-rerouted-by-pre-programed-computer-system-r-1546228571

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-flight.html

Quote :

"Missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370's initial turn from its planned flight route was reportedly scheduled on a computer system and programmed by someone with access to the cockpit, casting further suspicion on the plane's pilots and crew. The New York Times, citing "senior American officials," reports that whoever programed the system used a computer located between the flight's captain and first officer. The officials said it was unlikely that a passenger would have known enough about Boeing aircraft to have reprogrammed the system."

and pilot suicide has been ruled out due to that:

Quote :

"One American safety expert, John Cox, a former airline union safety official, said that someone taking such pains to divert the plane does not fit the pattern of past cases when pilots intentionally crashed and killed everyone on board. "There's an inconsistency in what we've seen historically," he said, comparing the disappearance of Flight 370 with two murder-suicides, on an Egyptair flight off Nantucket Island in 1999 and a SilkAir jet in Indonesia in 1997. In those crashes, he said, the pilot involved simply pushed the nose of the plane down and flew into the water."

3/18/2014 9:59:24 PM

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/

Quote :

"The left turn is the key here. Zaharie Ahmad Shah1 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. "

3/18/2014 10:15:47 PM

That's the most plausible thing I've read. Fire, reroute for emergency, overcome by smoke, autopilot until fuel exhaustion or structure/flight control failure, crash into ocean.

[Edited on March 18, 2014 at 10:36 PM. Reason : .]

3/18/2014 10:35:40 PM

I posted it as my best bet last friday on page 2.

there are some problems with that theory too, though, as more evidence is uncovered. still probably about as good of a bet as anything, I think.

3/18/2014 10:41:34 PM

^^^ that's at odds with what I posted above your post, if what I posted is true.

anyway, it makes it to this list:

http://gawker.com/the-four-least-insane-sounding-theories-about-flight-37-1546495028

3/18/2014 10:52:02 PM

yeah, i just now saw the reports of the programming of the flight.

how do they know that if they havent found the plane?

3/18/2014 10:55:19 PM

^^^^^^ pilot suicide hasn't been ruled out, in fact its still very much a possibility. IF its crashed and the FDR and CVR indicate there was some problem with the aircraft, then you MIGHT be able to rule it out, but

^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ If I'm the pilot/copilot planning to effectively steal this plane by diverting its course midflight, I'm aware that I'm almost certainly going to be seen on at least one military radar. So transponder has to be turned off and I'm wagering I won't be indiscriminately shot down by those militaries. In case I were to be seen and jets scrambled it would be advantageous to have an exit strategy, so it makes sense for me to use a heading towards an airstrip that might be seen as having a logical explanation.

Yes its a stretch, but there is also ZERO evidence of a fire, or even a crash at this point.

[Edited on March 18, 2014 at 11:13 PM. Reason : .]

3/18/2014 11:10:59 PM

CNN citing US officials saying the flight turned before the last verbal communications. Or the programming was entered or some shit.

3/18/2014 11:14:14 PM

rebuttals by 777 pilots to Chris Goodfellows' fire + knocked out pilots + flying till fuel exhaustion theory:
http://www.businessinsider.com/did-missing-plane-fly-for-hours-after-deadly-fire-2014-3


wonder if there is any truth to this:
http://www.businessinsider.com/maldvies-islanders-claim-to-see-malaysia-370-2014-3

3/18/2014 11:48:20 PM

^old news

it was programmed to make a turn that was not in the flight plan 12 min before the "goodnight" transmission.

I dunno what to think happened...part of me wants to say foul play but another says catastrophic failure of electrical systems or something.

3/18/2014 11:51:10 PM

If there was a fire on-board, why again did they never call in the emergency?

The fire disabled all their communication systems? Really?

3/19/2014 12:16:31 AM

Interesting rumor going around that the plane landed at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Didn't hear about the Maldives witnesses until now, but fits in with that theory. I don't think the two are far apart

3/19/2014 12:32:59 AM

I heard that as well^

That they had landed safely and had ppl in on it to collect cell phones, laptops, etc.

I dunno if i believe that.

and Yes, a fire could have easily started and not been recognized near the wheel well/door. It would have went through the electronics first and not been noticed.

Then the smoke would be filling the cockpit.

IF...IF the up and down erractic flight path is true, then it sounds like they were trying to starve the fire of oxygen up high and then put it out via high speeds on the descent.

3/19/2014 12:43:34 AM

Maybe some covert agency kidnapped all those engineers to make a time machine or warp drive or something.

3/19/2014 1:21:54 AM

Uh, how in the hell would it have landed at Diego? That's a Brit/US military base.

3/19/2014 8:58:15 AM

Yeah that's the most far fetched thing I've heard, other than aliens and reality shows.

3/19/2014 9:06:10 AM

CNN reporting that the pilots flight simulator had data deleted.

Things really aren't shaping up well for the anything but foul play angle. Course change programmed before sign off, multiple minutes between switching off comms and transponder (if it was a fire I would think you'd do this innrapid succession, no?), deleted data from the pilots simulator... The lengthy time the engines still ran...

I suspect this thing has crashed somewhere, like they didn't have enough fuel to get it where they wanted to bring it, but that the original intent was for a foul play angle.

3/19/2014 9:52:39 AM