Malaysia Airlines 777-200ER Missing In Flight

[dodgy-alan 1,587]

Here's a scenario, The aircraft is indeed hijacked and has landed, the passengers etc have been disposed of. There is no ransom demand as there are no survivors to tell the tale. After a couple of weeks the hijackers take an old innoucuous fishing boat etc down to the Indian ocean and drop of various bits of debris, including possibly a flight recorder or two removed from the aircraft. they lay a false trail which has everyone going around in circles. In the meantime the aircraft is rigged with several tons of explosive, the computer and transponder are reprogrammed, the aircraft then joins the air routes as a genuine Malaysian flight, until it nears it's target, ie either The Hague, London, etc at which point it is too late to stop it. Major target such as a royal palace, G8 summit, Major meeting of heads of state wiped out. 

[britfrog 180]

its feasable Alan,

but why was it the chinese that found the first beep thousands of kilometers from where they were searching?  perhpas it was they that dropped it where they could find it.

[MyPC8MyBrain 273]

overlooking the obvious

the black box cannot be tampered with, ok; let’s assume it was tampered with

you’d need some skills and major Hollywood equipment to record back a disaster data onto the black box

 

[allardjd 1,853]

Very good point, Chris. In particular, the FDR data, if it's found, will be examined by experts including the aircraft manufacturer. If the data has been diddled, they'll smell a rat for sure.

 

John

[britfrog 180]

Very good point, Chris. In particular, the FDR data, if it's found, will be examined by experts including the aircraft manufacturer. If the data has been diddled, they'll smell a rat for sure.

John

 

that is of course presuming that the experts havent been "got at" , if you get my drift.

 

[allardjd 1,853]

Sonar is tricky stuff. Pure physics and the varying effects of environmental conditions can cause all kinds of strange things to happen with sound propagation in water.

 

Effects of the thermocline, variations in pressure, temperature and salinity, currents and other things result in phenomena variously known as the surface ducts, the deep sound channel and convergence zones. Sometimes they mask nearby sounds and other times they make it possible to detect sounds in the water over very large distances. It's not so simple as saying if it's nearby you can hear it - sometimes you can't. Conversely, being able to hear something does not necessarily mean that the origin is nearby. The deep sound channel in particular can make sounds detectable over incredible distances.

 

As for conspiracy, I'm pretty sure there are several involved here.

 

1) Someone in the cockpit caused this. Whether that person or persons was in the pax cabin at takeoff is indeterminate. Nonetheless, someone aboard the aircraft caused this to happen.

 

2) Malaysia and Malaysian Airlines are still "spinning" this to avoid, as much as possible, any further loss of "face" over it. It's the way it is in that part of the world.

 

3) Countries nearby have been and are still being cagey about the capabilities of their radar systems and what, if anything, they detected during the event. Saying whether or what they detected will give potential adversaries some intelligence about their detection capabilities and operating procedures (e.g. whether their military radar was manned that night or whether the raw data is recorded). They don't want that kind of information out there.

 

4) Ditto countries with satellites.

 

Beyond that I'm having a pretty hard time buying into the idea that the AC has been hijacked and diverted to an intact landing, either at Diego Garcia or elsewhere. It's just too thin. I can't come up with a reasonable set of "why and how" answers for a diversion to Diego Garcia by US authorities. I also can't really postulate a plausible "how" for a diversion to the "Stans" and hiding it for weeks, though the "whys" are a little easier in that case.

 

I think it's in the water. I think one of the crew did it, most likely the captain. I think it was suicide, possibly mixed with an intent to discredit the current Malaysian government, which the captain strongly opposed. All those may be incorrect but those are my opinions at this point.

 

It may very well be that we'll never know.

 

John

[dodgy-alan 1,587]

I just hope for the sake of all those families that they get closure on this as soon as possible. I can't help but think that this would have been an ideal sort of job for the Nimrod MRA-4, ........but of course our intelligent government scrapped it! 

[brett 2,310]

>3) Countries nearby have been....Very, very plausible.

 

> I think it's in the water. I think one of the crew......Another good one. If the route the aircraft took, as portrayed so far, is somewhat accurate, then it would be as good as any of the explanations I have heard.

 

Terrorist attack? You would need a lot of money and high tech planning to do something along those lines. I don't think the remaining wacko's have those capabilities, unless of course it is to be blamed on some soon to be named group, making it easy to take even more of our freedoms away and make the top protection companies even richer. Best to not think along those lines.....

[dodgy-alan 1,587]

No one ever imagined Al Queada had the intelligence to carry out 9/11. America was extremely complacent when it came to terrorism. They would know that a simple hijacking would not succeed again, therefore something much more sophisticated would have to be done. Never underestimate A Q.  They are as cunning as an old fox. Yes, some of the recent radicalised hot headed kids don't have a clue, but the more experienced ones certainly know their stuff.

[J G 927]

The jury is still out for me.

 

I am not convinced that it was sabotage there is no evidence for it yet, come to that there is no evidence for anything.

 

I don't know the capabilities of the 777, but I do know the an Airbus's systems will do everything they can to land an aircraft smoothly whatever the circumstances. Its still possible that the crew and passengers were incapacitated by a sudden event that didn't have an impact on the aircraft's flight systems, running out of fuel could have resulted in a relatively smooth landing on the sea minimising debris.

 

The sea is very deep where the anticipated crash site. It could be that this would help in minimising debris, the pressure in these depths is huge and who knows what would happen in such conditions. 

 

Very deep is very hard to find. we know more about the moon than we know of the depths where they are looking.

 

I think that the radar and satellite theories are a bit over blown.  Where as the capabilities of the radar systems of the areas countries may be shrouded in some secrecy (and who can blame them, every country does that), the sea off the west coast of Australia is of little strategic importance to anyone, and hardly a place that nations are going to spend millions of dollars watching.

 

So I remain open minded, at least until someone comes up with some hard evidence.

[Andrew Godden 943]

Just some additional speculation, but factually based and plausible if there was intent:

• current estimated depth of the "blackbox" pings - 14,500 ft;
• average depth of the Indian Ocean - 12,990 ft;
• estimated location of the "blackbox" pings - Wharton Basin;
• approximate average depth of the Wharton Basin - 20,000 ft.
• approximate area of the Wharton Basin - 400,000 sq mi.

So, if you want to hide something, you pick one of the largest, deepest areas of one of the most remotest locations of an ocean in the world that is within range.  Add in the concept of some sort of a controlled ditching in an attempt to minimise any sizable debris field and.....it takes weeks and months to locate, if ever.

 

Cheers

Andrew

[brett 2,310]

Wharton Basin is also known as one of the Twelve Devils Graveyards.

[dodgy-alan 1,587]

It's an area of the sea that no seaman I ever knew was very comfortable with travesing. We were all very aware that if we went down then the chances of finding us, were virtually zero (especially in the late 70s before the age of satellite tracking and computers.)

[Quickmarch 488]

There is a spot in the South Pacific (48°52.6′S 123°23.6′W) where you can be further from land than any other human beings have been - except for the Apollo Astronauts. It was dead centre on the round-the-world race route. If memory serves it is 1700 NM from the nearest land. Compare this to Low Earth Orbit (the orbital track of most spacecraft) at ~850 miles. The 1700 NM quoted is the distance from ANY land which includes small islands. The real distance from help (SAR) is much greater, more like 2500 NM from Santiago Chile or Auckland NZ.

 

If, in fact, this aircraft was intentionally ditched, this spot was likely not chosen because it is not very deep - only 11,000 to 12,000 Ft. and possibly outside the range of the 777.

[allardjd 1,853]

Wouldn't an orbiting spacecraft in low Earth orbit, above or nearly above that spot in the ocean be further from any land than someone on the surface?

 

John

[Quickmarch 488]

Good point, JA. Most of us refer to distance to orbit as being straight up. The angular distance would, of course, be greater.

[dodgy-alan 1,587]

Believe me, when you're in the middle of the ocean, even a 270,000 ton VLCC can feel tiny!

 

[J G 927]

Gut wrenching photos Alan...... just looking at them makes me feel......oh god......excuse me.......... 

[dodgy-alan 1,587]

Gut wrenching photos Alan...... just looking at them makes me feel......oh god......excuse me.......... 

LOL! It was always amusing watching the first trippers! 

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

.

[Gunner 69]

"Investigators have named the pilot of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 as the “chief suspect” in the plane’s mysterious disappearance after clearing everyone else on board.

Malaysian detectives grew increasingly suspicious of the pilot after discovering that Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah programmed his flight simulator with a route that would land a plane on a small island in the Indian Ocean, the Sunday Times of London reports."

 

http://nypost.com/2014/06/23/pilot-of-missing-flight-370-has-been-named-chief-suspect/

[brett 2,310]

JessB does that all the time.

[J G 927]

"Investigators have named the pilot of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 as the “chief suspect” in the plane’s mysterious disappearance after clearing everyone else on board.

Malaysian detectives grew increasingly suspicious of the pilot after discovering that Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah programmed his flight simulator with a route that would land a plane on a small island in the Indian Ocean, the Sunday Times of London reports."

 

http://nypost.com/2014/06/23/pilot-of-missing-flight-370-has-been-named-chief-suspect/

 

Seems like clutching at straws to me.  Any simmer might do this as a navigation exercise.

 

Get the FBI to look on my PC and they find my ATWC5 stories and would think I am nuts... oh wait a minute...  

[dodgy-alan 1,587]

I'll wait until the movie is released!

[Paul K 22]

Dodgy-Alan, which company were you with ? Shell Tankers UK here.