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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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 ]

Satellite pings do indicate that they landed.

This is my source for the Kansas city tracking of one of the passengers’ mobile phone:

https://twitter.com/BreeFeng/status/444087214268362752

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..