Malaysia Airlines Flight Vanishes

[suthdj]

Maybe they did and that is why they are staying quiet. I still wonder if the plane was shot down and the country that did it doesn't want to admit it.

That is a very plausible explanation.

If one of them shot it down I think the other 2 would be pointing fingers

[mojo84]

Maybe they did and that is why they are staying quiet. I still wonder if the plane was shot down and the country that did it doesn't want to admit it.

That is a very plausible explanation.

If one of them shot it down I think the other 2 would be pointing fingers

I hear ya but who would have thought a plane could just disappear in this day and time.

[strider67]

Maybe they did and that is why they are staying quiet. I still wonder if the plane was shot down and the country that did it doesn't want to admit it.

That is a very plausible explanation.

If one of them shot it down I think the other 2 would be pointing fingers

I hear ya but who would have thought a plane could just disappear in this day and time.

I may not have my facts straight, but if it were shot down, when would it have been shot down? The engines were still shaking hands with the radar 7.5 hours after disappearing, no?

The news stated this morning that China is getting quite upset with how the investigation is progressing. There were obviously a large number of Chinese people on board...

[WildBill]

Maybe they did and that is why they are staying quiet. I still wonder if the plane was shot down and the country that did it doesn't want to admit it.

That is a very plausible explanation.

If one of them shot it down I think the other 2 would be pointing fingers

I hear ya but who would have thought a plane could just disappear in this day and time.

I may not have my facts straight, but if it were shot down, when would it have been shot down? The engines were still shaking hands with the radar 7.5 hours after disappearing, no?

The news stated this morning that China is getting quite upset with how the investigation is progressing. There were obviously a large number of Chinese people on board...

Maybe their statements are typical government speak PR. I would think that the Chinese are also performing their own investigation.

I can't explain how the engines were still shaking hands with the radar 7.5 hours after disappearing. It seems like the airlines and military communications experts could explain it better than me or the news reporters.

You might think that if the airliner was scheduled to land in China at a certain time and it didn't show up they would have started a search and investigation/inquiry right away.

[puma guy]

Has any one checked with David Copperfield?

[Jaguar]

A former airline pilot, friend, and coworker of mine put out theory this morning I hadn’t heard in any of the news stories I’ve seen or read.

The plane is said to have climbed to 45,000 feet, which is above the recommended operating altitude of the Boing 777. The pilot could have decreased cabin pressure and at that altitude the drop down oxygen masks for passengers would last about 30 minutes. The walk-around bottles for the cabin crew would last about 45 minutes. The flight deck has enough oxygen to last beyond the rest of the plane and would probably last 2-3 hours. If the pilot wanted to take over the plane he could climb to 45,000, dump the pressure and wait an hour for everyone on board except himself and the co-pilot to die. If the co-pilot was not with the pilot it would be simple enough to incapacitate him prior to execution of the plan. Even if the cabin crew and passengers wanted to stop the pilot, the doors are hardened and they only have the walk around oxygen bottles for the cabin crew so large scale resistance would be futile.

From what I have heard, the pilot was a supporter of an opposition leader who was jailed hours before the flight. His wife and kids left him the day before the flight. He was an experienced pilot who could land a 777 singlehandedly. Maybe the plane is sitting on the ground somewhere being repurposed with everyone on board dead. Maybe the pilot set the autopilot to fly to the middle of the Indian Ocean and took off his oxygen mask in a suicide hijacking. The suicide pilot sounds the most plausible to me. If it were a hijacking by someone other than the pilot/co-pilot the same method could be used kill everyone on board, but that seems less plausible.

[RoyGBiv]

Here's the first "hijacked" theory that has any resonance with me at all.

Facts re: SIA-68 not confirmed.
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[jmra]

Here's the first "hijacked" theory that has any resonance with me at all.

Facts re: SIA-68 not confirmed.
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Makes a lot of sense.

[RoyGBiv]

Here's the first "hijacked" theory that has any resonance with me at all.

Facts re: SIA-68 not confirmed.
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Makes a lot of sense.

Apparently this is a difficult thing to both "schedule" and to "execute".
How do you know where the other plane will be and exactly when?
How to you "catch up" to it in time to hide behind it when the timing needs to be just so and the difference between cruise speed and max speed isn't that great? (555Kts vs 590Kts).

I still believe it's likely not terrorism.
Either a cascading failure of equipment or possibly the pilot lost his mind.

[SewTexas]

Here's the first "hijacked" theory that has any resonance with me at all.

Facts re: SIA-68 not confirmed.
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Makes a lot of sense.

wow....if they did this, can you imagine the planning?

[jmra]

Here's the first "hijacked" theory that has any resonance with me at all.

Facts re: SIA-68 not confirmed.
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Makes a lot of sense.

wow....if they did this, can you imagine the planning?

Terrorist spent over 2 years planning 9/11. Commitment and planning don't seem to be an issue. Before 9/11 no one who has believed it possible that 3 out of 4 hijacked planes could hit major targets in the US.

I'm not saying this is what happened, just that it is plausible.

[RoyGBiv]

I'm still placing my bets on some version of "mechanical/electrical/airframe failure/fire"

Here's another good hypothesis. Occam would be proud.
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh ... ical-fire/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The left turn is the key here. Zaharie Ahmad Shaw was a very experienced senior captain with 18,000 hours of flight time. We old pilots were drilled to know what is the closest airport of safe harbor while in cruise. Airports behind us, airports abeam us, and airports ahead of us. They’re always in our head. Always. If something happens, you don’t want to be thinking about what are you going to do–you already know what you are going to do. When I saw that left turn with a direct heading, I instinctively knew he was heading for an airport. He was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi, a 13,000-foot airstrip with an approach over water and no obstacles. The captain did not turn back to Kuala Lampur because he knew he had 8,000-foot ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier toward Langkawi, which also was closer.

Take a look at this airport on Google Earth. The pilot did all the right things. He was confronted by some major event onboard that made him make an immediate turn to the closest, safest airport.

For me, the loss of transponders and communications makes perfect sense in a fire. And there most likely was an electrical fire. In the case of a fire, the first response is to pull the main busses and restore circuits one by one until you have isolated the bad one. If they pulled the busses, the plane would go silent. It probably was a serious event and the flight crew was occupied with controlling the plane and trying to fight the fire. Aviate, navigate, and lastly, communicate is the mantra in such situations.

[Beiruty]

So how it was pinging for 7hrs?

[jmra]

I'm still placing my bets on some version of "mechanical/electrical/airframe failure/fire"

Here's another good hypothesis. Occam would be proud.
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh ... ical-fire/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The left turn is the key here. Zaharie Ahmad Shaw was a very experienced senior captain with 18,000 hours of flight time. We old pilots were drilled to know what is the closest airport of safe harbor while in cruise. Airports behind us, airports abeam us, and airports ahead of us. They’re always in our head. Always. If something happens, you don’t want to be thinking about what are you going to do–you already know what you are going to do. When I saw that left turn with a direct heading, I instinctively knew he was heading for an airport. He was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi, a 13,000-foot airstrip with an approach over water and no obstacles. The captain did not turn back to Kuala Lampur because he knew he had 8,000-foot ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier toward Langkawi, which also was closer.

Take a look at this airport on Google Earth. The pilot did all the right things. He was confronted by some major event onboard that made him make an immediate turn to the closest, safest airport.

For me, the loss of transponders and communications makes perfect sense in a fire. And there most likely was an electrical fire. In the case of a fire, the first response is to pull the main busses and restore circuits one by one until you have isolated the bad one. If they pulled the busses, the plane would go silent. It probably was a serious event and the flight crew was occupied with controlling the plane and trying to fight the fire. Aviate, navigate, and lastly, communicate is the mantra in such situations.

According to Fox News this morning, data received from the plane's systems show that the turn was preprogrammed into the navigation system and was not performed manually. It may have even been programmed into the system while it was still on the ground.
Another link http://news.iafrica.com/worldnews/908028.html

[philip964]

The pilot had four landing sites in the Indian Ocean, programmed into his hobby flight simulator.

Doesn't mean a thing, but interesting.