[breaking] Malaysian Airlines loses contact with Beijing-bound flight, 239 on board

If you're following this story closely you would have noticed plenty of others making that comparison. I was making a general statement.

Here's the link:

http://www.nst.com.my/nation/genera...lot-i-established-contact-with-plane-1.503464

The aircraft was flying about 30 minutes ahead of Flight 370 and was able to establish contact around 01:30.

 

If it was terrorism, wouldn't some organization be claiming the credit? It's not very terrifying if nobody knows it was done on purpose.

If Google was running airport security, that's probably how it would work. But, instead you have bloated, lazy, and corrupt govenment agencies doing it.

 

This whole passport thing is probably just distraction.

There is small probability something will happen with planes. You might have redundant systems, but there is always that .00001% something will go wrong and given enough chances there is some probability it will happen.

 

1. It's apparently not that uncommon. In the 2010 crash of Air India Express flight from Dubai to Mangalore they discovered 10 of the passengers were on board using fake, fraudulent or stolen passports.

2. I'm surprised that none of the military radars from Malaysia or Vietnam have any info on this aircraft. I know none of them are major military powers, but still. Couple month ago when USAF send over some B-52s to the newly declared Chinese ADIZ they were able to track, monitor & identify the entire flight path of these B-52s when they were still over 1000 miles away from China.

3. It's probably done as a show of strength. The Chinese send over 2 aircraft carrier sized LPD (basically a "carrier" for helicopters & amphibious assault ships). Obviously the USN will send in something major as well.

 

So that would have been immediately following its disappearance from radar?

Thanks for the link.

So I am curious why they are searching the Andaman Sea now. Why would it have traveled that far West without notifying anyone? Could the plane have lost communication controls for some reason?

JuanValdez, I'll try and find the article, but I read last night that some group in China (I believe) had put out a video that all but claimed responsibility. They basically gave a reason why it happened (connecting it to the knife attack in China) without explicitly claiming responsibility.

AirLanghi, you don't think the passports have anything to do with the disappearance? I assume you don't suspect terrorism? If you had to speculate based on what little we know now, what do you think was the cause? Why do you think they were travelling to Amsterdam and somewhere else on stolen passports? Immigrating to Europe, but separate places? Why was it organized by an Iranian businessman? Not saying it was terrorism, but the additional details that have come out make me think the passports are very suspicious.

Is there some kind of estimate of how often people board planes with stolen passports?

 

So this is the flight path, I believe the oil slicks were found about 100-150 miles South Southwest of Phu Quoc. However, the US, et. al., are searching the Andaman Sea, which is several hundred miles West. Why would the aircraft have flown so far off course?

That would have meant it was flying towards India. Weird...

 

The strangest part about this story to me at the moment is the searching of the Malacca Strait. I would think traveling that far back, and even going over Malaysia again that some radar would have picked it up. And if it did fly that far it likely crash laded in water intact ala Air France 447. In that case the debris would be easier to find than a disintegration at altitude over the South China Sea or Gulf of Thailand . But wdik.

 

Ooops, that's the flight plan of the plane that was ahead of 370.


Not much difference, but for accuracy this is the flight path of MH370.

 

Exactly, how could it have flown BACK over Malaysia, or that far west if it was in the Andaman Sea without being able to establish contact?

 

Mystery Iranian bought tickets for passengers who used stolen passports to get on Malaysian Airlines flight.

 

She (the travel agent) also said she had booked many flights for this Mr. Ali, and that she chose this flight because it was the cheapest path. He also paid in cash.

 

The odd thing about the Iranian middleman was that, according to the travel agent who booked the tickets, he never specified a route. He just asked for the cheapest possible tickets to Europe, and the travel agent had initially reserved the two (fake passport) men on Etihad and Qatar, before the tickets expired and the middleman asked to book the tickets again. Unless it was a very elaborate and clever ruse, the middleman doesn't seem to be connected at all.

 

Yah, I would agree, unless he is involved in a much larger plot to arrange the travel for multiple people over a several month period, I doubt he was involved. Also, if he was looking for tickets to Europe, and didn't specify that it had to go a certain way, it's unlikely that it was terrorism. However, it is possible that he KNEW they would have to travel north and that was all the hijackers needed. Had they gone south it would have been too difficult to steer the plane elsewhere. Then again, it appears the plane DID turn around at some point....ugh I don't know! So much info to absorb.

Reading about the cell calls. If your phone drops into the sea, it should go straight to voice mail, correct? Or would it depend on the carrier/settings? Multiple relatives of missing family are reporting that they have been able to get a signal through, but that it hangs up after a few rings. Didn't say it went to voice mail. Just that it hung up.

 

If the goal was simply to blow up a plane and kill people, they didn't need to worry about route. The rest of that information could just be filler for the fact that what they wanted was simply two tickets on a large plane.

That said, a plane blowing up at night? Wouldn't that be pretty visible? The other plane mentioned boats in the water that would have heard their radio communication. Wouldn't someone have seen a plane blow up?

 

My theory is the plane's electrical systems failed and power was gone, the pilot landed the plane in the ocean softly, and the plane sank intact with everyone on board before anyone could get off.

 

Recent posts lead me to ask: is there any reputable source considering a non-catastrophic scenario? There's no way you can hide a freaking 777, right?

 

But people would have been calling loved ones like crazy, right?

 

If they were at cruising altitude and the plane lost power would the pilots be able to land softly?

And wouldn't people have been sending calls, texts, etc?

Or are you just trying to figure out a way to make sure that the passengers suffered?

 

All these planes have an APU that provides power in case of an engine failure. It can give you hydraulics, radio, radar etc.

Plus at altitude they would have had 30 minutes or so to glide and declare an emergency.

So you are talking about the failure of both engines AND the APU. Not very likely but who knows.

These theories are all awesome. Each one could be a movie

 

Oh I agree about the govt but it's actually very simple. A SQL databases stores the metadata it needs (link from barcode to image, passportid, valid dates, country, flags, flight tracking, misc info, etc) and the passport image is stored in OMF. We do that for every document, fax, scanned mail etc for our company...a very large 500 insurance company that has to capture, store and retrieve every imaged document quickly forever. Very simple and very doable. But now if you take the govt point of contracting it out to the lowest bidder who in turn rips the govt off..hahaha. Ok I see your point.