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

[Robin]

The EVENT? plane full of people that crashed turned out to be alien's who were caputured and put secret facility type place for 50 years!

Because sometimes they park the plane and go for a crafty-fag-and-a-cuppa, it's effectively a bus-in-the-sky.

There are lots of emergency checklists that include reboots of various systems/subsytems so the ability does need to be there. Airlines really concentrate on avoiding coercion eg stopping hijackers from getting to the cockpit. What they don't tell you is that it's quite easy to do if you take some screaming hostages.

It’s a shame that the industry is starting to go that way 'like buses' because they certainly shouldn't be treated as such. I guess I do understand that systems need the ability to be isolated incase they cause an issue with something else but it's scary to think that it can go from a plane to a stealth lump of hurtling metal relatively easily.

 

[Dennisch]

Anyway. Langoliers. I've solved it, we can all go home.

Holy obscure mini series reference, Batman.

 

[BobK]

As long as we're engaging in pure speculation, and in the absence of any real facts it's really all we can do, how does this sound. Hijackers with rudimentary flight training took over the plane then in an attempt to "get under the radar" descended to wavetop height only to discover that the fuel consumption of a jet goes up enormously at low altitudes and ran out of fuel. Or just decided to crash it into the ocean for whatever reason.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Works for me, but they'd only need to make land so they'd have plenty of fuel, plus they've got 30,000+ in altitude to trade for forward speed.

To do it right you've got to add the purpose, where they were going, and what sort of aliens were/weren't involved

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Land the plane, cover it or paint it (sounds silly but very doable and obvious), move the passengers out.

A camouflaged hangar would be easier. You could prepare it in advance, park the plane inside, and move everyone out quickly. It would be harder to spot, and even if it was found out, it would still buy you plenty of time. The trick is in how to move the hostages - you have two hundred and fifty of them. A fleet of buses would work, but would arouse suspicion if they were travelling in convoy.

Or Chinese intelligence wanting someone to disappear without overtly killing them.

Sounds like a bad Tom Clancy novel: Chinese intelligence carry out a needlessly-complicated aerial hijacking to locate and identify an enemy of the state on the plane, but the catch is that they have no idea who it is, only that they are on the flight.

 

[TenEightyOne]

A camouflaged hangar would be easier. You could prepare it in advance, park the plane inside, and move everyone out quickly. It would be harder to spot, and even if it was found out, it would still buy you plenty of time.

Yep, you can down the plane and be out before a search is even under way.

What if you only wanted four people from the plane or something that it was carrying? No need to bus a load of passengers, if you see what I mean.

EDIT: Tomorrow's Telegraph, a British 'clever' paper for stupid people is paving the way for the Iran/Passport story with its usual slightly cross-eyed annoyed view of everything.

(Cover shown under 'fair use', this is the paper's published 'rush' of tomorrow's 1st ed.)

 

[Crash]

I don't think an aircraft this big could land on a grass airstrip / clearing could it?

If you're willing to potentially ruin the airframe, sure it can.

Still no word from Boeing as to whether all location and communication instrumentation can be disabled on a 777.

Some can't be. For example, the black box cannot be turned off.

However, Boeing won't release any statement relating in any way to this incident. Whenever there's an accident and there's some sort of FAA/NTSB involvement, a gag order is put out to the manufacturer.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Some can't be. For example, the black box cannot be turned off.

When it goes into 'crash' mode, sure. Up until that time it's controlled through the central operating system(s) and only records a certain amount of history. You could deliberately kludge the inputs (if you knew what you were doing) and record garbage. That's theoretical, but in a scenario where somebody will stop at nothing to get a plane then anything's possible! Even physically unplugging and destroying it (them). You can also damage/destroy the cockpit mics and record null.

That said, the telemetry data that would go into the black box is normally transmitted throughout the flight on a SATCOM link to the manufacturer and/or airline. Procedures for this were improved as a result of initially conflicting automatic reports from the Air France aircraft leading up to its loss.

 

[Keef]

Question - don't black boxes give off GPS signals? That is how they found the Air France wreckage in the Atlantic, isn't it?

They don't have any locating gadgetry - they're strictly sealed flight data recorders. The ELT is what they'll be looking for and as it transmits a radio signal it'll be close to impossible to receive from the surface of the ocean.

Also, keep in mind that, at least in the US and probably most of the world, GPS is not legal to use as a sole source of navigation. It can be use as a primary source but only if other ground-based or internal systems are available, like VOR or INS. An airliner's FMS integrates all these systems, satellite, ground-based and internal to do its calculations. Even if GPS and ground navaids all go kaput the plane can navigate with its internal FMS database and INS for navigation.

The idea of GPS is pretty simple when you're on the ground but its nowhere near reliable enough for sole use in the air or on the water and probably won't be used as a sole source in the air for the foreseeable future.

 

[TenEightyOne]

They don't have any locating gadgetry - they're strictly sealed flight data recorders.

Modern FDRs can have a radio locator in the internal frame, from news reports it seems that search services are looking for that signal (amongst all the other obvious signs). Some are actually designed to eject themselves from the plane in certain events in order to protect their integrity.

You're right though, the ELT in the airframe is the main locator source and I'm certain it broadcasts with a lot more power.

Sounds like a bad Tom Clancy novel.

There is no such thing, sir

Except the sub-writes. And the film of Op Centre is one of the worst ever made.

 

[niky]

Or Chinese intelligence wanting someone to disappear without overtly killing them.

Anyway. Langoliers. I've solved it, we can all go home.

The answer is never crappy CGI.

Never.

-

The hijacking angle is still tenuous. While the fact that an Iranian ordered the tickets is a potential red flag, considering that the passengers were both reportedly Asian, this could simply be some rich Arab flying in household help on the sly.

It happens a lot more than you think.

While there are terrorist cells in the area, training two to land a state-of-the-art jetliner on a jungle strip would be quite a feat.

Also, no one has claimed responsibility for this feat... yet.

 

[TenEightyOne]

considering that the passengers were both reportedly Asian,

Haven't seen that, all reports so far have said not Asian.

Back to something I said earlier in the thread, the aircraft was expected to be making flight data transmissions but it failed to make them. Investigators seem to favour the idea that there was a sudden aircraft/pilot problem.

Reuters

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Except the sub-writes.

Of course. Sub-writers are writers who could not make it on their own, so they piggyback off a more-famous author to try and break into the market. Clive Cussler does it, too.

 

[Dotini]

Haven't seen that, all reports so far have said not Asian.

Back to something I said earlier in the thread, the aircraft was expected to be making flight data transmissions but it failed to make them. Investigators seem to favour the idea that there was a sudden aircraft/pilot problem.

Reuters

In other words, the pilot was potentially able to control the airplane in such a way as to avoid detection for over 72 hours?

If the aircraft is not located within the next 8 hours, I might become concerned about pilot complicity in the vanishing of Flight MH370.

 

[TenEightyOne]

In other words, the pilot was potentially able to control the airplane in such a way as to avoid detection for over 72 hours?

If the aircraft is not located within the next 8 hours, I might become concerned about pilot complicity in the vanishing.

I'm not sure I'd take it to imply that, I think they're just not excluding a pilot action simply because they can't. Without the aircraft I guess a lot of outside bets are still on.

The thing with radar contact / vhf sight is that you can go to low altitude to evade that and therefore become 'invisible'. However, the plane is unlikely to have exceeded 2,500f/min descent and would have taken nearly 15 mins to achieve the required altitude.

Whatever altitude it was at the telemetry transmissions (via SATCOM, line-of-sight-to-ground not required) should have continued. They didn't, the logical conclusion seems to be that they were deliberately terminated (unlikely but not impossible) or that the aircraft was suddenly destroyed.

 

[ProjectWHaT]

If aliens did abduct them, I'd like to say:
I called it. ;d

 

[Dotini]

I'm not sure I'd take it to imply that, I think they're just not excluding a pilot action simply because they can't. Without the aircraft I guess a lot of outside bets are still on.

The thing with radar contact / vhf sight is that you can go to low altitude to evade that and therefore become 'invisible'. However, the plane is unlikely to have exceeded 2,500f/min descent and would have taken nearly 15 mins to achieve the required altitude.

Whatever altitude it was at the telemetry transmissions (via SATCOM, line-of-sight-to-ground not required) should have continued. They didn't, the logical conclusion seems to be that they were deliberately terminated (unlikely but not impossible) or that the aircraft was suddenly destroyed.

Roger that.
According to broad hints, the investigating authorities know quite a bit more than they are letting on.
Let's see what tomorrow brings.

 

[TenEightyOne]

More from the Reuters blog, nothing really new except the continued downplaying of the 'terrorist' angle.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

The Malaysians have confirmed that one of the two men travelling with a false passport has no known terror associations.

 

[TenEightyOne]

The Malaysians have confirmed that one of the two men travelling with a false passport has no known terror associations.

Given that they seem to have booked via the same (apparently regular) agent and means it increases the likelihood that the other guy was doing the same thing (eg heading to Germany on a fake passport to seek asylum).

It really surprises me to read how common this still is, I genuinely (and naively) thought that European policy was simply to put them on a return flight back whichever passport control let them through.

EDIT: The FO had only just made his first flight in the 777 and had just completed a "textbook landing" of the aircraft at Kuala Lumpur.

He has a lot of experience on the 767 and was transitioning to the 777 after simulator work. That gives the aircraft something in common with the AF crash and the only fatal 777 crash - inexperienced FOs. In the AF case the Captain was resting due to the length of the flight, in this case the Captain is unlikely to have left the flight deck for any significant length of time, if indeed its company policy to allow them to.

Not conclusive by any means but nothing can be ruled out yet.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

The authorities have elaborated that they are working on four scenarios:

1) A pre-planned hijacking.
2) Sabotage that took place on the ground at some point.
3) A member or members of the crew having some kind of mental breakdown and commandeering the plane.
4) Passengers having a mental breakdown and taking control of the plane.

Oddly, they make no mention of mechanical failures.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Four on CNN too, #1 is already out-of-date though, or at least in terms of one of the 'fake passport' passengers.

I just cannot see how the plane made it any distance without a single manual or automatic transmission. It must have very quickly just disintegrated somehow.

I read that rather than a damaged tail (as previously reported) the aircraft suffered a damaged wingtip in its Shanghai accident. That's potentially more significant as you can apply a lot of force across the root if you hit the wing the wrong way. With tail-strikes they're normally vertical or on a path perpendicular to the tail protrusion, that gives surface damage without distorting the spar mounts.

The airframe will (certainly should) have gone through all kinds of checks since the accident in 2012, and personally I don't see that it can be significant. Still, as I keep saying, it's anyone's guess at the moment. I just don't see that it made it from T0 to anywhere at all.

EDIT: Interpol have traced the mother of one of the passport holders (the 19yo Iranian) in Germany where she'd been expecting her son to join her. A friend of the man in Iran says his friend was travelling the same way with him. That will need to be confirmed but it seems that neither of them or thought to involved in any potential terror/hijack action.

 

[niky]

Haven't seen that, all reports so far have said not Asian.

Yeah, news says Iranian (obviously, on this page, too!)... but from the stories, it's much as I thought... people trying to slip through the net. Illegal immigrants / refugees... similar thing.

-

Big question: People have claimed over the past few days that some of the phones are reachable. From what I know of cellular service, you can, at the very least, pinpoint which cell site those phones are connected to... which should give you a search area.

That so many report the same thing increases the likelihood that whatever happened happened over land.

 

[axletramp]

I think the Russians have stolen it to divert attention from the crisis in the Crimea.

 

[ULTRAVIOLENZZ]

TL DR. How about EMP? A sinister group EMP the plane while the clean up crew is waiting near the estimated crash site.

 

[Grayfox]

TL DR. How about EMP? A sinister group EMP the plane while the clean up crew is waiting near the estimated crash site.

How would you get an EMP generator on the plane?
A EMP blast powerful enough to kill the electronics would need a device the size of Little Boy.
Planes have very heavy shielding on their wires, So the rumor that your phone will bring down a plane is a lie, the strobe lights are more likely to cause interference than your phone.

 

[ULTRAVIOLENZZ]

How would you get an EMP generator on the plane?
A EMP blast powerful enough to kill the electronics would need a device the size of Little Boy.
Planes have very heavy shielding on their wires, So the rumor that your phone will bring down a plane is a lie, the strobe lights are more likely to cause interference than your phone.

Hmm...I' just making this up but what if some group set off a small EMP in that area or at least near the plane. I'm just speculating so forgive me if it's a bit of a nonsense.

 

[Blitz24]

Hmm...I' just making this up but what if some group set off a small EMP in that area or at least near the plane. I'm just speculating so forgive me if it's a bit of a nonsense.

Near the plane? So someone was around the plane to set it off? Almost equally as unlikely.

 

[GTPorsche]

TL DR. How about EMP? A sinister group EMP the plane while the clean up crew is waiting near the estimated crash site.

But....

Big question: People have claimed over the past few days that some of the phones are reachable. From what I know of cellular service, you can, at the very least, pinpoint which cell site those phones are connected to... which should give you a search area.

That so many report the same thing increases the likelihood that whatever happened happened over land.

Throws any EMP theory right out of the window.

 

[Agent_47]

Have they thought about looking at the passengers/crew members cell phone records to see if there was any activity in the last 3 days? It may lead to something, whether it be location or plans

I would think the carriers could ping the phones, or at least try to triangulate its signal or last known position.

The problem with that theory is that in order to land the plane, you would need a runway capable of handling a Boeing 777. Commercial airports would be out of the question, because the plane would be immediately identified. So you would need a private airstrip, and there probably aren't many that can take a plane that size.

What about old abandoned airfields from the Vietnam War? I'd think those could handle it. Another question is how they would stay under radar though? Wouldn't these countries see it?