MH370: Malaysian Airlines Flight to Beijing carrying 239 people is lost over sea.

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Famine
I'm curious how there was a fire severe enough to knock out all communications and the pilots, but not until after they'd tried to climb to 45,000ft to put the fire out (do we not have halon extinguishers any more?) or disable the plane to the point of a crash until it ran out of fuel 7 hours later. Fire's generally not that picky - I could see spot fires disabling the communications or the pilots without destroying the plane, but not both.

Not to mention the alleged radar trace of it dodging between waypoints while flying west, away from (having already overflown) Langkawi...
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Toxic fumes with LSD-like effects? I don't know, but it's more plausible to me than considering the most sophisticated hijacking of all time or pilot suicide.
 
Famine
I'm curious how there was a fire severe enough to knock out all communications and the pilots, but not until after they'd tried to climb to 45,000ft to put the fire out (do we not have halon extinguishers any more?) or disable the plane to the point of a crash until it ran out of fuel 7 hours later. Fire's generally not that picky - I could see spot fires disabling the communications or the pilots without destroying the plane, but not both.

Not to mention the alleged radar trace of it dodging between waypoints while flying west, away from (having already overflown) Langkawi...
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That's what makes the mystery so bizarre - there is no one explanation that adequately fits the known facts.

Rich S
The Malays have not been overly helpful have they.... It could certainly be that the plane is never found.
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I suspect they held back at first so that they could pursue leads uninterrupted, but as those leads went nowhere, they have no choice but to reveal what they know as they know it. At this point, I seriously doubt they know any more than they are telling.

I wonder how many aircraft are at the bottom of the ocean in the Bermuda triangle.... quite a lot I imagine.
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I believe it is only two.
 
Of course!
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Is it possible some kind of decompression incapacitated the crew and passengers, similar to Helios Airways Flight 522?
 
If there was a smoldering fire and the wiring boeing used was had crap insulation(unlikely) the fumes could have been toxic.
But if the fire started in the A/C system wiring and killed the A/C and transponder system, the air would no longer be recirculated meaning it lingered, the smoke killed the pilots, their falling hand may have moved the heading dial turning the plane sending it on a new course, passengers would not have known this and may have been concerned if smoke was in the passenger compartment about what was happening, they would have passed out due to the smoke, plane would have kept on going much like Helios Airways Flight 522 before crashing
 
Grayfox
If there was a smoldering fire and the wiring boeing used was had crap insulation(unlikely) the fumes could have been toxic.
But if the fire started in the A/C system wiring and killed the A/C and transponder system, the air would no longer be recirculated meaning it lingered, the smoke killed the pilots, their falling hand may have moved the heading dial turning the plane sending it on a new course, passengers would not have known this and may have been concerned if smoke was in the passenger compartment about what was happening, they would have passed out due to the smoke, plane would have kept on going much like Helios Airways Flight 522 before crashing
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Still doesn't explain climb and two deliberate direction changes as tracked by radar, one I could understand but two of them in distance apart, not so much. Also that climb leads me to suspect the flying in another jets shadow theory. I mean at this point I just want the damn thing found and as fun as this has been it's just repeating.

Oh and let's not forget the other parts that have just about debunked the fire idea that everyone is ignoring again and again. Look I get it you guys don't want to believe or find it so implausible that some parts of the world aren't as paranoid as the core nations we live in that are constantly acting as if a monkey is on their back out to get them. This delusion then predicates it self as "well clearly some sort of radar should have picked these guys up and there is now way the could have escaped being noticed." Like I said at this point I'd rather the plane be found sadly one way or another and I hope the families soon get some closure to all this.
 
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Grayfox
If there was a smoldering fire and the wiring boeing used was had crap insulation(unlikely) the fumes could have been toxic.
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I would have thought so too.
A quick google brings up this chart, if that is indeed correct (Cross Linked Tefzel, 8th down on the list) that's some nasty stuff in the 777's.
Geez we wouldn't be allowed to use that in trains at work.
 
Grayfox
You cant miscalculate the fuel range on jets these days.

You punch in where you want to go and it tells you that you do not have the fuel for the job.
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You could easily get a very wrong number by putting in a flight path and then not sticking to it. Max range is achieved at a specific speed and and altitude for your weight.
 
Shaun
I would have thought so too.
A quick google brings up this chart, if that is indeed correct (Cross Linked Tefzel, 8th down on the list) that's some nasty stuff in the 777's.
Geez we wouldn't be allowed to use that in trains at work.
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I wouldn't think that boeing and the NTSB or what ever organization approves the planes for use wouldn't allow that wire
 
Israel on 'high alert'! Because Intelligence.;)



Sounds normal for Israel.



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On a different note. Could a sudden climb to a higher altitude help extinguish a possible fire. Any protocol for this maneuver?
 
playnthru
On a different note. Could a sudden climb to a higher altitude help extinguish a possible fire. Any protocol for this maneuver?
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I can only think that you might do this if you have one engine left, are far out to sea and you expect it to fail. While you've got power then you want to save as much up in altitude as you can. There is no such manoeuvre in the fire or damage/separation engine checklists, something like this would be at the pilot's discretion. I don't recall any previous incident where an aircraft suffering engine failure (or any other critical emergency) has climbed other than to escape terrain.

EDIT: The FBI are "helping to recover some deleted files from the pilot's home simulator". The best of luck with that, ladies, when REX changes my FSX textures it does about 10 minutes of major file movement. I know, I need an SSD in that machine :D
 
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unitedstomper
This may have been posted what do you make of it
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Actually, radar can be fooled into thinking something has crashed when it hasn't if something is flying below 5000 ft, or as the term goes, terrain flying. It would take a skilled pilot to pull something like that off, which gives the flight simulator that one of the pilots has a lot more significance if said pilot was practicing the maneuverer.
 
Sanji Himura
Actually, radar can be fooled into thinking something has crashed when it hasn't if something is flying below 5000 ft, or as the term goes, terrain flying. It would take a skilled pilot to pull something like that off, which gives the flight simulator that one of the pilots has a lot more significance if said pilot was practicing the maneuverer.
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No, try 500ft. 5000ft is around the most visible altitude sitting, as it does, within the range of powerful ground stations and less powerful mobile units (line of sight depending). Below 500ft you start getting into 'ground clutter', the exact altitude varies dependent upon terrain of course.

The flight sim did not enhance his quality as a pilot, being a 777 instructor-rated pilot was already enough. A plane is a plane, he could fly it pretty much anywhere if he wanted to at any altitude.
 
TenEightyOne
No, try 500ft. 5000ft is around the most visible altitude sitting, as it does, within the range of powerful ground stations and less powerful mobile units (line of sight depending). Below 500ft you start getting into 'ground clutter', the exact altitude varies dependent upon terrain of course.

The flight sim did not enhance his quality as a pilot, being a 777 instructor-rated pilot was already enough. A plane is a plane, he could fly it pretty much anywhere if he wanted to at any altitude.
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Not if the game was hijack. Taking a 777 below radar for a reason that isn't clear to you, me or the rest of the world for that matter is still a difficult task for any seasoned pilot, and if those two Iranians had anything to do with it, that said pilot could have been under duress while the plane was being hijacked.

Of course, the pilots could be complicit, but we are all going on speculation at this point.
 
Sanji Himura
Taking a 777 below radar for a reason that isn't clear to you, me or the rest of the world for that matter is still a difficult task for any seasoned pilot,
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True, but his home flight sim isn't going to give him much extra skill in that regard. It's possible that somebody could use a flight simulator to plan a route, inconceivable that they'd use it to learn to fly a heavy airliner below radar altitude (potentially closer to 200ft than 500 over empty terrain). I'm trying to stress to you the fact that he is already a pilot with something like 10,000 hours on type. His flight sim isn't teaching him anything.

And I agree, it's all speculation because so far there's no wreckage, no admission of guilt, no nothing. The only facts that we do have don't add up and lead to an impression of confusion or mistrust amongst the search parties.
 
TenEightyOne
The FBI are "helping to recover some deleted files from the pilot's home simulator". The best of luck with that, ladies, when REX changes my FSX textures it does about 10 minutes of major file movement. I know, I need an SSD in that machine :D
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This whole simulator thing is a red herring. As for deleted files, I routinely delete large amounts of saved flight files on a daily basis. Or more specifically a program I have running in the background while flying deletes them. It saves the current flight at one minute intervals, deleting the saves more than ten minutes old. So if flying for one hour, I've deleted fifty saved flights. Almost everybody who's even halfway serious about flightsimming uses this program (it's called FSUIPC).

Besides, there's no indication that the deleted files were related to FSX at all. He could have been simply cleaning out his photo gallery or something.
 
Even then, @BobK, there is still traces of that file that still exists in the hard drive, unless it deletes it multiple times. A program called Eraser can do this up to 32 times. If that pilot wasn't careful to that extreme, then it is child's play to the FBI or the NSA to recover that data.
 
From what I understand regarding a theory of fire and heading set until fuel stops, the ACARS system would report any irregularities in the operation of the aircraft. No?

It would report the use of fire suppression systems, shut down of other electronics, and ultimately the engines running out of fuel. Data to that effect has not been reported, Right?
 
@Sanji Himura no one doubts the capability to recover the files (drive type depending, of course), it's the 'red herring' that they represent in terms of the story (as @BobK said). The files could be related to anything, and even if they are from flight sim (and if the story's even true) then there's still nothing suspicious about it.

JMR450
From what I understand regarding a theory of fire and heading set until fuel stops, the ACARS system would report any irregularities in the operation of the aircraft...it would report the use of fire suppression systems, shut down of other electronics, and ultimately the engines running out of fuel. Data to that effect has not been reported, Right?
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It could transmit some of that data, part of the confusion is what it was transmitting. It only sends short packets at intervals of many minutes so isn't a live telemetry feed in that sense.

You're right overall though, the plane should have been sending some data to somebody. If it was running on autopilot then it had 'operating system authority', it had hydraulic power, it had some central power.

The authorities' data seems to be as specific as how the new course data was entered (keystrokes on center console), that isn't part of ACARS and is a strange thing to know, if true. I'd expect in an emergency that if they were using the autopilot they'd dial settings in on the console at the top of the main dash. Typing into the FMC is much more relaxed and premeditated.

prisonermonkeys
That's what makes the mystery so bizarre - there is no one explanation that adequately fits the known facts.
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This remains the problem. Somehow the plane was in an emergency state (presumably) but couldn't communicate (incredible over any period of time). The pilots may have been overcome by either incident or human force, and the route settings may have just been temporary while the pilots controlled the emergency (switching between aviate and navigate, never reaching communicate). I find it inconceivable that some message wouldn't have been relayed if the pilots thought they might have to ditch.

I remember that on some 747s the senior cabin crew had access to a radio so that they could exchange instructions with the ground if necessary, I don't know if that was restricted to a model/airline or if its available on the 777.

All those passengers, all those phones, not a single message. That doesn't make any sense, that leads me to think that the plane was subdued or destroyed. Or that it never took off, the transponder was on a different aircraft*.


*Dramatic music, and now a word from our sponsors.
 
Reports are coming in that the Australians have found something. We'll know more when the Prime Minister comments on it. If he applauds the hard work and dedication of the Australians who played a key role and basically congratulates Australia at an inappropriate time, then it's worth investigating further. If he offers his condolences to the families of passengers, it's nothing.
 
prisonermonkeys
Reports are coming in that the Australians have found something. We'll know more when the Prime Minister comments on it. If he applauds the hard work and dedication of the Australians who played a key role and basically congratulates Australia at an inappropriate time, then it's worth investigating further. If he offers his condolences to the families of passengers, it's nothing.
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In other words, he does the wrong thing for each situation. Well, he still would look better than the Malaysians.
 
Blitz24
Well, he still would look better than the Malaysians.
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The Malaysians might appear incompetent, but at least they are about ready to admit that they have no idea. Our Prime Minister is completely incompetent, but convinced that he is the Best Prime Minister Ever.
 
prisonermonkeys
The Malaysians might appear incompetent, but at least they are about ready to admit that they have no idea. Our Prime Minister is completely incompetent, but convinced that he is the Best Prime Minister Ever.
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Sounds no different than 90% of politicians in the world, but that's a story for another day. How far off of Antarctica is this search occurring?
 
There was no doubt there might have been some 'Need To Know' protocols being followed; after all even those who may have comandeered the jet would like to know what the investigators know.

For the general public, it's all smoke and mirrors - hopefully the smoke clears and we can have some transparency soon.

While it looks increasingly like barratry, there seems to be increasing odds that the logistics of keeping over 200 people alive for so long weigh against their survival. :(
 
IF the found "parts" are the plane, the next thing they need to do is find out why the hell it was going to Australia, because there's no way the wind could have blown it there...
 
The location was probably calculated applying wind and current data to the original datum.
The plane may have hit the water in a complete different location to the debris.
 

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