The plane that went missing
They were surprised not to find any debris or wreckage despite the intense search, and in those first days of chaos, nobody imagined that the most starkly obvious reason why they couldn’t find any is because there wasn’t any. Not there, anyway. And now, as it looks increasingly likely, not anywhere else either.
Well, I’d say plenty of people realised that was the reason no wreckage was found, when the search truly got underway, but thought better than to voice their concerns in public for fear of being thought loony conspiracy theorists.
Then late on Tuesday the news began to leak out that investigators had information on how the plane, when contact with it was broken, had not dropped out of the sky but had actually executed an about-turn and begun flying in the opposition direction. Also, its communication devices had been deliberately switched off at that point.
On Wednesday, this news was reported more clearly in a big story in The Times (London) and other media. And there was additional information: that the plane had continued to fly for more than seven hours after official contact with the ground was deliberately broken off. This would have used up all the fuel.
Then yesterday (Saturday), the Malaysian authorities finally called a press conference to concede this information and to add that though they knew the plane had flown for another seven hours, they did not know in which direction it flew after making that U-turn.
The big question, then, was whether the plane stopped flying after those seven hours because it had run out of fuel (and did it crash then?) or whether seven hours were enough to get it to whichever destination had been intended.
But then, if so, where is it?
When it was first announced that the plane had gone missing, there were reports in the media of relatives and airline personnel who had called the mobile phones of passengers and crew on the plane only to hear them ring out. In a crash situation, that doesn’t happen. These reports were dismissed as wishful thinking or, as one London newspaper put it, “maybe they just dialled the wrong number”.
But now those reports don’t seem quite so dotty anymore. It makes you wonder why, given those reports of phones ringing out, and not just by one or two people, the investigating authorities didn’t immediately run through the list of contact mobile numbers of passengers, which airlines log when the ticket is booked, and find out for themselves. Or maybe they did.
Then today there was a further bit of information: that those pings the plane transmits automatically even after its communications equipment is switched off may have been transmitted while it was on the ground – having been properly landed, that is, as there are no pings in a crash situation.
You can almost see where this is going (where it has gone already for the investigators and almost certainly at world-power level): the possibility that an entire planeload of people might well have been kidnapped, literally flown off to God knows where on the instructions of God knows who.
But then why hasn’t any group or person claimed responsibility? Because they wouldn’t necessarily do so. It all depends on whether they want worldwide publicity for their cause or to exert pressure on a state or government. Then yes, they would want to be known because anonymity defeats the purpose. But if all you want is revenge, then anonymity is actually preferable because part of the revenge is leaving your enemy in confusion and perplexity.
Pilot suicide? This has been discussed a lot and some aviation specialists are convinced of it. But is that the sort of thing you’d ask an aviation specialist for an expert opinion? A psychiatrist would be the proper person. I haven’t rung anyone like that to see what they think – not late on a Sunday evening, anyway – but I have a niggling feeling that I know what they’ll say: that any pilot who plans to commit suicide by crashing his plane will not fly for eight hours before, literally, taking the plunge. People may take a long time thinking about their suicide and planning it meticulously, but then when it comes to the crunch, they want it over and done with immediately. They’re not going to sit about in a cockpit burning up all the fuel in their tank for eight hours. And the pilot, by all accounts, wasn’t remotely the suicidal or depressive type.
Anyway, what do you think?
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I do think it eventually ran out of fuel and crashed as its reported flying time was an hour and a half longer than its intended journey.
That is close to or beyond the amount of fuel reserve normally carried.
Moreover it is likely to have been flying a considerable part of the time at very low altitude (hence consuming fuel more quickly) as otherwise it would have shown up on long range radars.
The intention may have been to land somewhere but it is looking very unlikely that they have succeeded in doing that.
Satellite pings do indicate that they landed.
No they don’t actually. The pings do not convey any information except the identity of the plane and indirectly through radio location some very rough indication of the location.
The pings simply stopped at one point but it is not possible to know whether they stopped because the plane crashed or because the power was turned off, as would be done after landing.
Seven hourly pings were sent and received by Inmarsat. New Scientist indicated the landing ping was received too. So it flew for seven hours and most likely landed.
Remember the seventh ping is a TAXI ping which indicates a landing must have occurred.
It has happened before – most recently in 2003, when a Boeing 727-223 was stolen from Angola.
I’d give a longer answer involving James Brooke, but that’d have the anti-Hakkiem Barrani brigade out in force.
This is an explanation why the phones kept ringing.
http://indiandefence.com/threads/mh370-why-arent-passengers-picking-up-ringing-phones.43937/
Excellent point. If a mobile phone is switched off, you will hear (on some networks at least) a ring tone before it diverts to voice mail.
Current evidence points to hijacking. Possibly in a manner similar to Ethiopian 961 ..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Airlines_Flight_961
The 777 is a big plane and it would have been picked up by primary radar if it had flown over Thailand, Indonesia, India or Australia. All of these countries were within range.
So where is the Boeing?
Exactly. It is entirely possible for there to be a ringback tone even if the phone is off. An associate of mine heard with his own ears a the ring of a phone belonging to one of the crew members on this flight; http://i.huffpost.com/gen/602604/thumbs/o-INDONESIA-JET-CRASH-570.jpg?4
It was found a few days later against a cliff face.
Persistent reports point at the plane heading north but I think they should be looking south where there are fewer tracking radar stations along the way and where Islamic dictatorships operate and piracy activity is ongoing.
Cannot exclude anything. But, based on published information, satellite pings suggest that if the plane went South, then it travelled along the Southern corridor on the Eastern side of the Indian Ocean, as far as Australia.
Could it be an attempt to land or crash the plane in Australia?
Indonesia is an important part of the route of illegal migration in the region. Australia is currently adopting a hard line position on migration and I think it has been rather quiet about this incident.
Indonesia is also the centre of Islamic terrorist cells in the Asia-Pacific area.
There were 6 Indonesian men and one woman on the plane.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/03/15/possible-paths-for-missing-malaysia-airlines-flight/
I actually meant WSW towards the coast of Africa.
From the information given, traveling in a straight line from the U-turn the plane made, it would have had enough fuel to reach the African coast. Traveling North without detection would have been more difficult and no one is reporting any radar sightings.
A few years ago we were told that the US had camera equipped satellites which could read a car licence plate from space, yet the investigating teams out there appear to be having difficulty scanning rogue States for possibly abetting in the disappearance of Flight 370 and possibly hiding the plane for later terroristic use or ransom.
With regard to ‘pings’ which apparently are only transmitted once the plane comes in contact with water, I would dare speculate that if, on board, there were brains capable of identifying and switching off electronic gear making the plane virtually invisible, creating a similar signal on the ground would have not been so problematic.
In the meantime, lack of cooperation among the nations involved in the search is leading one to believe that they haven’t even found the haystack, let alone the needle in it!
Angus, I fully understood the direction you suggested, but from what I followed, the pings from the satellite do not relate to contact with water. They identify the flying plane and some data about it, including the distance of the plane from the satellite, at intervals of about 1 hour each, with the last one received at about 8.00am on Sunday morning. Each ping was then traced to a particular circle (call it radius) around the world map after taking into account the position of the satellite relative to that map and the calculated distance between the plane and the satellite.
The particular circle formed by the radius identified from the last ping ranges from Australia in the East to somewhere in the Middle East. But it has been reported that the plane would not have had the fuel range to travel to the East side of the circle, whilst the pings on that circle excludes that the plane was on the East side of Africa, for instance. Which explains why only the part of the circle on the East side as shown by the Washintonpost are being considered in this case.
Correction: “But it has been reported that the plane would not have had the fuel range to travel to the East side of the circle,” should read:
“But it has been reported that the plane would not have had the fuel range to travel to the WEST side of the circle,”
Yes, I agree.
Australia operates a broad network of over the horizon radars on the north coast called JORN. It has a range of around 4,000kms. If it headed south, chances are that they might have of tracked it. Last I heard they are scouring records as we speak…
I wonder whether contact has actually been made with a government and said government is keeping quiet about it to avoid losing face. In a ‘We have no problems in our country’ sort of way.
We have already seen something similar in the Wenzhou train collision, where the Chinese regional government ordered the train’s burial to hide the issue from the public.
[Daphne – That’s roughly what I’ve been thinking. That if somebody has kidnapped a planeload of Chinese citizens, there is no way China is going to react publicly. And it will put saving face before the protection of its citizens, who it considers to be entirely dispensable and devoid of rights.]
Exactly. I also find China’s apparent public extreme concern unnerving. There have been multiple reports of rage and criticism by China towards Malaysia. Since when did China put international relations second to citizen concerns? They doth protest too much.
My reasoning was the same. China doesn’t exactly jump when a minuscule number of its citizens has disappeared. I do wonder whether the suspicion that the security-related jobs of a number of the passengers is just a conspiracy theory.
@Mike. My version is very close to yours. The plane was hijacked to exert pressure/blackmail on the Chinese government, since 2/3 of the passengers were Chinese.
The hijackers would have contacted the Chinese government as soon as the plane broke off contact with the civil aviation authorities and changed course. The plane continued to be flown while negotiations between the hijackers and the Chinese government continued. The Chinese government, which is not subject to the same concerns as a democratic government, refused to concede or even to reveal to the public or other governments what was happening.
The plane ran out of fuel and crashed, or landed somewhere and the passengers killed.
Let’s see what kind of demands/blackmail could have been exerted on the Chinese government and by whom. The incident with the plane disappearance coincided with growing tension over Ukraine/Crimea. The Kremlin announced that if NATO doesn’t back off from Ukraine, Russia will dump the USD currency.
That action could potentially cause the financial collapse of the whole US financial/economic system. And the Kremlin would not be able to make such declarations unless they have full cooperation with China, as China is the major holder of American Treasury Bonds, and to cause the collapse of USD currency, China and Russia has to dump USD jointly.
A day or two after the Kremlin’s declaration, the plane carrying Chinese citizens was hijacked.
The rest is history, and we will never know the truth.
[Daphne – You can’t organise something like that in a day or two, or come up with the idea/plan literally overnight. I am inclined to agree with your hypothesis as to what must have happened, but not with the reasons for it.]
Daphne, if the plane was hijacked a day or two after the Kremlin’s declaration, doesn’t automatically mean that the hijacking has been organised overnight. It could have happen anytime, and preparations could have been underway for a couple of months. After all China openly stated their intention to go away from USD even in December of 2013 by refusing to invest anymore in US Treasury Bonds.
My thinking is along these lines, and also for different reasons, but somehow I can’t persuade myself that the Chinese would allow themselves to be blackmailed “merely” by the threat of citizens being held.
It would have to be a threat of use of those citizens as individual human bombs, or the like, in different global locations that would rally the Chinese public to a mass outcry and be effective as a threat.
I think the plane has landed in a desert and a planeload of hostages have had their phones taken away. We should hear the demands soon. Something like Jordan in September 1970.
I hope the hostages survive.
Please… this is utter tosh.
The only way a jetliner can land safely is on an airstrip several kilometres long, and with the directions of air traffic controllers.
Unless there is an airstrip of this designation, and most importantly a complicit authority/government (for which reasons?) willing to risk the ire of troublesome nations like China etc.
And land where? An improvised defection to where exactly? None of the countries within range are exactly paradise hot spots.
What really happened: some crew members defected and the transponder was switched off (I find it hard to believe that anyone else on board had the knowledge to do so). The plane veered off course, out-flew its fuel range, and crashed (sea or land now impossible to tell).
I am surprised no alien theories have been put forward.
Of course I meant an airstrip. This has been done before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawson's_Field_hijackings
I’ve no idea what has happened to the plane, but in the media at least it has totally overshadowed what’s happening in Ukraine and Crimea.
Sure it does. 239 persons are missing. And this could be terrorism. And it has implications for the aviation industry.
Remember 9/11 and what ensued, including a war in Afghanistan?
1. I do not believe that this plane was flown for 5 to 7 hours under the control of the captain alone without a revolution on the plane. Passengers would have realised that the plane had changed direction. The onboard screens showing the journey map would have gone blank, or would be showing the new direction. Someone must have been in control in the cockpit, while others were in control in the passengers cabin.
2. Why would an asset that cost USD 300 million, carrying 250 people, not have satellite-controlled location detectors which cannot be tampered with by anyone on board the aircraft, but especially by those flying and controlling it? This is a major issue which I have not seen discussed in the media so far.
4. I am not sure about China’s role in this incident. China is putting pressure on Malaysia to give credible information, but it was China which permitted the publication of blurred pictures showing “debris” in the South China Sea. Two-thirds of passengers on board were Chinese.
5. Little has been said about how Malaysian military authorities tracked an unidentified plane on military radar on the day flight MH370 disappeared, but took no action about it. What is the purpose of having military radar – presumably for security reasons – if unidentified planes are not investigated immediately?
“2. Why would an asset that cost USD 300 million, carrying 250 people, not have satellite-controlled location detectors which cannot be tampered with by anyone on board the aircraft, but especially by those flying and controlling it? This is a major issue which I have not seen discussed in the media so far.”
There is one reason: the risk of electrical fires, which you stop by switching off the source of electricity.
1) If you didn’t mind for the passenger’s welfare, there is a very easy solution. Depressurize the cabin. Within 2 minutes everyone will be unconscious. That being said, I don’t believe most of them would have of realized. This was at night over water. Pilots have trouble judging direction and speed, let alone drowsy passengers at 1am.
2) As previously mentioned, it is unfathomable to have an electrical system on an aircraft that is not fused and able to be switched off. The switching off isn’t just for fires, there are a myriad of reasons.
5) I think the fact that AF447 was fresh in everyone’s mind contributed to this. Many in the industry were under the impression that this plane would be missing for a couple of days, then it would be found and the cause would be attributed to pilot error yet again. When civilian radar lost it, everyone’s mind was geared to ‘accident’. The fact that the military, at 1:30am, didn’t act immediately isn’t extraordinary. I’ll remind you that on 9/11 the most powerful military in the world was dumbfounded for the larger duration of the attack, scrambling fighters only after 3 out of the 4 planes had hit. Things take time to be pieced together, fog of war and all that.
Hiding one of these small devices inside the plane would be the next big revolution for plane safety. Someone tell those experts about them.
http://www.tractive.com/en/
I don’t believe it is suicide.
I read somewhere – before it was known that the plane had flown for several hours after communication was shut down – that an ex-FBI man said that the plane could possibly be in a hangar somewhere, being “repurposed”, only to reappear elsewhere (possibly for some act of terrorism; 9/11 comes to mind) at a later date.
It sounds like a plausible theory to me.
Then again, newspapers are rife with conspiracy theories – although this case is extremely baffling, and fodder for speculation. But yes, I believe that whoever was responsible for the plane literally going off the radar had some sinister ulterior motive, which we will hear about unexpectedly, say on the 13th anniversary of 9/11 this year. I would not like to be in the air that day, nor in a place which is an obvious target for terrorists.
Yes.
A theory I came across is that apparently there is evidence that the plane reached an altitude of 45,000 feet. The pilot/hijacker would then have depressurised the cabin, killing all passengers aboard of hypoxia (the oxygen supplies from the masks only last for around 15 mins, or so I read).
The flying coffin could then be landed anywhere, with no one alive (other than the hijackers) to pick up the calls.
This only shows that whoever did this didn’t get his flying lessons in some in some cave in Pakistan or Iran.
Fair enough, but how would the pilot survive the altitude manouvre? Is there some technique he would use to protect himself?
Yours is perhaps the most plausible of theories. Indeed, didn’t the pilot boast that he had constructed a flight simulator at home?
[Daphne – Many people own flight simulators. It’s just a harmless hobby. And come on, it was his profession. I am really uncomfortable with speculation about the pilot and with this suspicious examination of what he was and wasn’t, in the media (the investigation is something else). If he wasn’t the perpetrator of this crime, then he was chief among its victims and might well even have been a hero who will remain forever unsung.]
“Fair enough, but how would the pilot survive the altitude manouvre? Is there some technique he would use to protect himself?”
Good question. But when you consider that a Maltese passenger once managed to get bloody fireworks on board a flight from Bulgaria, I wouldn’t be surprised if the pilot or the first mate managed to carry an oxygen tank or whatever was used on a plane leaving a banana republic like ours.
As to the suspicions pointing to the pilot/first mate, turns out that the last communication (the first mate’s “all right, good night”) was broadcast *after* the transponder was deliberately switched off. Ergo they were still on control of the plane when the disappearing act commenced.
*on board, in control… Smartphones are great, aren’t they?
The pilots have oxygen masks. In modern airliners the flight crew are the only people who draw air from an actual O2 tank, like those used in scuba diving. This supply can last for a few hours at least.
The trouble I have with the 40,000ft incapacitation lunge is that if the cabin is depressurised to an equivalent altitude in excess of 14,000 feet, those oxygen masks drop down in the cabin. That O2 comes from chemical generators which last around 10 minutes, once the material has reacted, the oxygen for the passengers stops.
In addition every aircraft carriers a portable O2 cannister for the flight attendants to make their rounds in case of an emergency.
The flight simulator thing is inconsequential to my mind. Many pilots are extremely passionate about their profession. They are literally living the dream. In some circles flight simming is quite prevalent. Even more astounding to me is the suggestion that the sim was used for training. The Captain was extremely experienced, he didn’t need to train for this. And I’m not saying I believe he was at all involved.
Also someone said there is no way it could land without a couple of kms of runway and the direction of ATC. This is untrue. If they had no qualms about damaging the aircraft or flying it back out, even less than 1km of clear, level ground will do. What ATC does at an airport is manage the traffic. A 777 is perfectly capable of reaching a predetermined location on its own.
I am convinced that the US intelligence knows more than what they are telling us. They are very good at diverting the media to other directions for a reason that we have yet to learn in time. The US government wants to catch the big fish.
Yes, that too.
The Americans have been (relatively) very quiet on the matter. I don’t believe the might of the US and the plane manufacturer have no clue…. not in 2014.
I reckon they’re somewhere in Pakistan.
“Pilot’s wife and three children moved out of family home the day before plane went missing”
“Shah, a father-of-three, was said to be a ‘fanatical’ supporter of the country’s opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim – jailed for homosexuality just hours before the jet disappeared.
It has also been revealed that the pilot’s wife and three children moved out of the family home the
day before the plane went missing.”
(NB – I read elsewhere that Shah, the pilot, was in court when the sentence was handed down on appeal – See the “Sudden Ascent and Dive” timeline on the link below)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2582146/Caught-CCTV-Pilots-doomed-Malaysian-Airlines-flight-walk-security-final-time-off.html
A very interesting account. But one must beware of the politics of this explanation. The Malaysian government might be leaking this information, which I am not sure has been verified by various media sources, to blame the opposition and its leaders.
I don’t know why, but when I think deeply about it, I see a similarity between this story and the one where somebody mentioned on local TV that a major hole in the LNG tanker to be moored in the Marsaxlokk could only be the result of sabotage, almost suggesting that it would be the work of the opposition.
The case as explained by Dailymail in my view explains all questions, and it is the most credible so far. If the plane is found in the Southern Indian Ocean, this would be the conclusive evidence.
It explains:
1. Why Malaysian authorities have come across as a confused and incompetent bunch. They probably knew the explanation from the start, but were trying to hide it.
2. Why Malaysian authorities have been accused by the media, and by China, that they are hiding information.
3. That this case is related to internal political issues in Malaysia, and the pilot was making a huge political statement against the government. The Malaysian government will be seeking to hide this, as it could face internal and international political pressure.
4. It explains that the plane was piloted by someone of great navigational ability. Zaharie Ahmad Shah was described by fellow Malaysian Airlines pilots as their point of reference. He also had a plane simulator at home.
5. It explains why the flight took a critical turn at the point it did, at the time it left Malaysian airspace and before entering the Vietnam air space. Only someone in control in the cockpit at that time could know that precise location of the flight for such a manouvre. Mr. Ahmad Shah would have travelled that route, and switched between those airspaces, hundreds of times. It is inconceivable to me that a hijacker would time his action from the passengers cabin precisely at that point.
6. Why the plane flew for a long time, but it remained under the control of who took it. The altitude manouvres, probably coupled with the pilot’s control over the use of the oxygen masks, ensured that 230+ passengers and crew were not a threat.
7. A hijacker would not want to hide his identity. I am still not in a position to believe Malaysian authorities when they say that Mr. Ahmad Shah has not left notes or other proof of what he has done.
8. Why Malaysian authorities dismissed with “No one has left” and a laugh one of the journalists’ questions about why the family of the pilot had left their home.
9. Why Malaysian authorities did not search Mr. Ahmad Shah’s property until last Friday – something which the media questioned during the whole week. They did not wish to put Mr. Ahmad Shah immediately at the centre of their investigation, and therefore putting the media spotlight straight on Malaysia’s political issues.
10. Why so far no country in Asia has confirmed any radar data pointing towards MH370 flying over its territory. The south corridor into the Indian Ocean is more likely. There can be several reasons for that route. In the absence of any notes left behind, it is possible that Mr. Ahmad Shah wanted to leave the fate of that flight as a mystery. That area was also of least threat to his plan to take the plane as far as possible.
11. There is a terrorist element in this story. It is very clear. The price was one of the highest, both in assets and in human terms. Now even in search and rescue.
I said “11. There is a terrorist element in this story.” Make that “11. There are terrorist and revenge elements in this story.”
Pressure on Malaysian government rises, from inside and outside.
http://www.themalaysiantimes.com.my/mh370-what-else-is-known-that-has-not-been-shared-with-the-world/
http://www.themalaysiantimes.com.my/najib-chicken-out-in-face-of-global-medias-slams-anwar/
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/learmount/2014/03/flight-path-mh370-story/
It is at the American military base Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The last signal (pings) the Rolls Royce engines sent came from over there.
http://alles-schallundrauch.blogspot.de/2014/03/gebrauchte-boeing-777-zu-verkaufen.html
Diego Garcia is a joint UK/US military base. How on earth would that work? Just use this to picture the scene, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b0/B-1_Bombers_on_Diego_Garcia.jpg/1280px-B-1_Bombers_on_Diego_Garcia.jpg
That’s where I think they are.
One of the mobile phones was actually tracked to Kansas now.
Remember onboard there were 20 engineers working on techniques to make planes electronically and visually invisible. The US wouldn’t have wanted their expertise to go to China..
This is my source for the Kansas city tracking of one of the passengers’ mobile phone:
https://twitter.com/BreeFeng/status/444087214268362752
Interesting, Katrin.
Under your link was a comment with this information:
Rough translation:
Four days after the plane went missing a patent was registered. There were 5 patent holders. 4 of the 5 patent holders (Engineers and similar level) were on the plane. The 5th patent holder was the company that they all worked for. In total 20 employees of this company were on the plane.
The company involved is “Freescale Semiconductors” from Austin, Texas.This is indirectly owned by Jacob Rothschild via Blackstone Group.
The text names the Chinese shareholders.
”
MrDavidMollenhauer sagt:
16. März 2014 13:32
4 Tage nach dem Flug MH370 wurde ein Patent angemeldet. 4/5 Patenthalter waren Chinesische Arbeiter (Ingenieure und ähnliches) von ”Freescale Semiconductor” Austin, Texas.
Fünfter ist die Firma selbst.
20% Anteil für jeden.
Zufälligerweise sind alle 4 auf diesem Flug gewesen.20 Mitarbeiter der Firma Freescale Semiconductor saßen insgesamt in der Maschine.
Die 5 Patenthalter:
Peidong Wang, Suzhou, China, (20%)
Zhijun Chen, Suzhou, China, (20%)
Zhihong Cheng, Suzhou, China, (20%)
Li Ying, Suzhou, China, (20%)
Freescale Semiconductor (20%)
Jetzt zum rechtlichen. Wenn ein Patenthalter stirbt, dann wird es auf den restlichen Haltern aufgeteilt. Solange nichts im letzten Wille spezifiziert ist.
Der letzte Patentinhaber ist somit Freescale Semiconductor selbst.
Na wem gehörts? Jacob Rothschild jedenfalls indirekt.
Mit Verbindung über ”Blackstone Group” welche Freescale über Anteile so ziemlich besitzt.
Hier weiterlesen: Alles Schall und Rauch: Gebrauchte Boeing 777 zu verkaufen http://alles-schallundrauch.blogspot.com/2014/03/gebrauchte-boeing-777-zu-verkaufen.html#ixzz2wGwqbFRB
“
I left out before the mention of Rothschild:
When a patent holder dies, the share gets split amongst the remaining patent holders – as long as nothing is mentioned in the last will.
The last share belongs to Freescale Semiconductor itself.
I think this is an asset hijack.
What’s more all the hijackers need do, is make available photos of aircraft to severely affect the aviation industry and global economy – they don’t even need risk flying it.
If that does not happen than the crash theory is more likely.
It looks like the plane was hijacked by a very capable group of people. I don’t believe it ever went down or landed on land – someone, somewhere would have seen and said something.
The plane was probably dropped into the ocean.
At this stage it is hard to tell if it was deliberate or due to something unplanned happening. Possibly the latter and that is why the perpetrators are keeping quiet.
There were reports of terror groups wishing to stage “a second 9/11” attack, where an airliner would again be used as a weapon to take down a skyscraper.
Then again, I think it’s the go-to suspicion in the world today and sounds a bit simplistic.
The story of the ringing phones sounds a bit dubious and, if true, should in itself have enabled them to trace the plane (which they haven’t).
A GSM device has to register on a network to operate. When a network registers a new device this is reported back to the device’s carrier, which would then know where to send the signal in case of communication.
It wouldn’t be able to communicate without this connection, hence if it was ringing the carrier would know to which network the phone is currently registered. In newer networks they would even be able to trace down to which transceiver the device was closest to.
I ruled out terrorism from day one because terrorism feasts on publicity.
But what could the other reasons be? If some organisation wants to exert pressure on any government, and it fails to do so behind the scenes, it will have no option, really, but to go public. And then we are back to the terrorism theory.
Perhaps not enough time has passed; perhaps we will hear about it later on.
On the other hand, I find it quite hard to believe that no government knows that a Boeing 777 landed on one of its runways. So, again, some government must either be in cahoots with the hijackers/kidnappers or else some state has unwittingly become host to the aircraft must be under intense pressure not to speak out – if for no other reason, as the BBC argued yesterday, that it would be very embarrassing for a state to have to publicly admit that it did not know that an aircraft of those dimensions landed within its territory or to have, perhaps, even given permission to the aircraft to land before realising what it was.
China has too many enemies to count – but I daresay few of them, if any, would aid and abet such practises and very few others have enough resources to keep the whole matter hidden.
Geopolitics might have nothing to do with it. What Bin Laden did to the US was an act of personal vengeance by a private individual and a State. This was unprecedented. Before Bin Laden and Al Qaida only States used to declare war on each other. Or Monarchs – in the name of their own territory/state. So this might be an act of violence committed by individuals, privately, for their own personal gain?
One reason I can think of is human/organ trafficking. Human trafficking and organ trafficking have become one of the most lucrative markets.
I know this seems to be a wild conspiracy theory – and I’m not a conspiracy theorist myself. However, I fail to see why an aircraft should vanish, with 239 people on board, without here having been any terrorist or criminal organisation in the world claiming responsibility, unless, of course, they have every intention and need to keep the thing totally hidden. And if this is the reason, why should they want to keep it hidden?
I hope for the sake of the passengers and their families that the matter be solved very soon – though I have to admit that my hopes aren’t high. I wonder whether this will be one of those mysteries which neither time nor intense investigation will unravel.
I think at some point people are going to start appearing on TV, filmed in a secret location with armed men standing behind them.
They will issue a plea for prisoners to be released from various locations around the world. Failure to comply will result in the deaths of the passengers.
Why is it taking so long? Because it takes time to relocate 200 odd people to various locations as they will not want all their eggs in one basket.
Any attempt to rescue one set of passengers will result in the immediate deaths of the others.
The ACARS and transponder may have been disabled but if the plane had then been crashed the black box would be sending out its own signal for up to three weeks.
My gut feeling tells me the pilot is being used as a scapegoat. They need to give the world an ‘explanation’, because there’s too much pressure.
I fear the real story, when it eventually emerges, will be so shocking and filthy the whole airline industry will suffer.
That 20 scientists were co-incidentally on that flight combined with the clearly lax security of the airline, destination China, begs the question: what else was on that plane?
Well for one full week it has certainly diverted attention away from Crimea and the rest of Ukraine.
To me it seems more plausible that the cause of the disappearance is technical.
Electrical fires especially in the equipment bays, can disable many on board systems including the transponder, and ACARS. Without more evidence, (I am not saying that there isn’t but there is none out in the open), I think it’s impossible to state with certainty, as the Malaysian PM did, that these systems were shut down deliberately.
Some inboard electrical fires may not be accessible to extinguishing agents, both automatic or hand held. Apart from that some fires cannot be put out with conventional extinguishing agents. Hence the new restrictions on the carriage of lithium batteries.
The turn-back that is being reported could very well be a manoeuvre to land the aircraft as soon as possible, this means pilots have to consider extreme manoeuvres such as ditching.
I do not believe that the aircraft reached 45,000 ft for a number if reasons. Firstly the service ceiling of this aircraft type is 43,100ft. Aircraft and engine performance would only allow the altitude to be reached when very light in weight. We know as a fact that this aircraft was very heavy. The engines did not have enough power to reach 45000.
To achieve a climb to 45000 they would have had to sacrifice speed. This would have put the aircraft dangerously inside the back side of the drag curve. Apart from the above judging aircraft altitude accurately using just primary radar is impossible.
However let’s for a minute assume that they did reach 45000 ft and did so intentionally, then there is no chance of doing so in a controlled manner, and a stall with a recovery would inevitably follow. This would tally with reports of erratic altitude changes.
The next question is why would they climb to an altitude knowing, as they would have, that doing so would risk aircraft control. My thoughts are that an electrical fire could disable the autopilot. If the cockpit is full of smoke spatial disorientation can follow. Fly by wire logic when in a degraded mode at high altitude results in big control column movement meaning aggressive climbs or descents.
There are many different scenarios plausible after these series of events that I can think of, yet hijack, pilot suicide, or the aircraft landing undetected seem to be the least plausible. I don’t think that they are impossible.
Unfortunately, as much as I hope otherwise, I believe that these people suffered a horrible death. There are many plausible scenarios, however without more concrete information that’s all they are, plausible scenarios.
[Daphne – http://www.businessinsider.com/malaysia-plane-fire-2014-3 ]
Thank you for the link. It seems as though I am not alone in my thoughts. Quite a few people I know who work in aviation seem to be of a similar opinon.
None have dismissed anything, yet few believe the more prevalent conspiracy theories.
If the plane crashed as you say why is the black box not sending out its location signal? That is after all the way it is designed, to transmit a signal for up to three weeks.
Another thing you may be able to answer. What logical reason is there for the pilot for example to be able to access the ACARS or transponder during a flight and disable it? Why are these systems not built into the aircraft in such a way that access is only possible from the outside whilst on the ground? Is there a logical reason why a transponder would need to be turned off in flight?
ACARS cannot be disabled from the flight deck unless you de power the AIMS ( aircraft information and maintenance system). Doing this would make it virtually impossible to fly the aircraft (navigation displays, attitude indicators etc blank). Alternatively ACARS can be disarmed from the equipment bay. This would require an in depth engineering background. Not impossible for a pilot but highly unlikely.
The transponder can be easily turned on and off from the flight deck. But again this would have resulted in a reaction from ATC.
With regards to the Flight data recorder, one would have to be within a few hundred miles to pick it up. I believe, but am not too sure, that it transmits in the UHF range, therefore I would imagine its range would be a few hundred miles. If the aircraft is under the sea, and it is somewhere in the South Indian Ocean, one would have to be pretty close to the wreck. The fact that data regarding its location is so sketchy renders it difficult to come within a few hundred miles of the wreck.
Its very difficult to posulate what happened. Yet today’s information, if true, that states that the turnaround was programmed in the flight management computers twelve minutes prior to the last communication changes things significantly in my mind. This information can be detected by ATC through a system called ADS that is actively used in a lot of those airspaces.
I know that ACARS cannot be disable from the flight deck without causing other issues but it can be disable by dropping through the hatch at the front of the aircraft and removing the necessary breaker.
I also know that the transponder can be switched on and off easily from the flight deck.
The question I was asking was why those functions are available to anyone during a flight? No-one should have access to those systems from inside the plane. So is there a valid reason why the pilot would need to be able to disable these systems during a flight?