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

Don't we have evidence (from the US side) that the plane was flying for 5+ more hours now? If they were shooting it down because it was headed back to Kuala Lumpur, it seems like (a) it would have been shot down much sooner than that and (b) someone, somewhere would likely have found some debris in the water since it wouldn't have been too far from the coast and generally in in the initial search area.

I don't understand why the currently known info is so unreasonable an explanation. Their military radar just IDs objects rather than what specific object it is, right? If they weren't looking for a runaway 777, they wouldn't have thought much - at the time - of radar pings showing a jet flying in normal commercial air corridors. They probably don't even notice the plane turning around if they aren't looking for it. And if they initially were certain that the answer was "crash", it wouldn't be until after the fact that they went back and sorted through all the objects on radar and matched them to legitimate flights and determined that one of these guys was not a known flight. The real-time expectation seems to assume first-world US-type defense systems that probably ID anomalies automatically, etc. That may not be the case for Malaysia - they probably use the radar more like we did decades ago.

 

All the runways in range. Have they checked them all out yet?



Seems to me that North Korea would have been within range, too, but the radar data seems to contradict that.

 

I'm just not sold on this "hijacking a plane to smash into buildings" thing. Are we saying that everything devious involving a plane has to do with terrorism and high rises? Are the terrorists of today so single minded? Or are conspiracy theorists uncreative?

And if was terrorists, where are all the bold statements claiming they took down the plane? Whats the use of downing a 777 full of people quietly? Even if they had a bigger agenda a failed, they could claim success by saying they took the plane...something that is supposed to be impossible in modern security. I just dont see this matching the 911 model at all.

Also, we've seen enough people lose their crap on planes and get pummeled by other passengers....I find it unlikely that someone took over the plane and the entire 200+ people would just sit there.

It could have been driven by money, as someone mentioned before. Modern airplanes do move a lot of cargo (I've had my luggage left in LA bc of this) as it brings in a bunch of money. Maybe someone paid the pilots off.

 

One problem with the steal-the-cargo theory is that it seems like this would require some decent amount of planning. So you'd have to know the cargo was going to be on this specific plane well in advance. And I would think there must be a much easier way to steal that than to hijack a plane, secretly land it somewhere, and escape with it. That just seems overly complex for what you're trying to achieve. Seems easier to try to get people into jobs in the cargo department and do something on the ground.

 

There must have been a quite a bit of planning if they managed to get a 777 to disappear off radar.

 

It would be unwise to dismiss any theories at this point, but the problem with this line of thinking is Captain Obvious type stuff: where is the debris field? If you shoot at a plane you're likely to clip the vertical stabilizer or one of wings which would almost immediately send the plane spiraling violently out of control and starting to breakup mid-air. There would be a noticeable debris field somewhere; and given that investigators are starting to retrace MH370's steps, I find it hard to believe if that were the case they wouldn't have already stumbled across at least some debris.

Who's military shot it down? When? I'm assuming you're alluding to the Malaysian government shooting the plane down; did it happen before it crossed over land on the east coast, while it was over the actual Malay peninsula or did it happen off of the west coast? Either way, the answer to this question reveals a ton of information about Malaysia's defense and radar capabilities which is why, in consistent fashion, I expect their government to continue to be vague and misleading regarding the matter

Keep in mind: this would be very similar to a "rogue" craft approaching US airspace, crossing over the entire state of Florida and watching the government do nothing until after the fact. Preliminary evidence seems to indicate that's essentially what happened, but perhaps your theory could offer a more proactive action on the part of Malaysia's government.

 

My theory doesn't have to mean hijacking into buildings.

All I'm saying is why did they not send up a fighter jet escort, or did they.

When air traffic controllers alert radar stations of a missing heavy, it becomes brilliantly clear that a little blip on your radar is that 777. And even without notice, what the hell is that thing flying at 43,000 ft.

It's extremely major incompetence of your own country defense warning systems to NOT scramble jets in the scenario explained by Malaysian. To me, it amazing the New York Times didn't even get to ask that question. But in the 500+ comments to their article, they marked 3 comments as NYT liked. The first one was exactly what I'm asking. Why no fighter jet escort.

 

Except there are a lot of blips on the radar - all the other jets that are flying the same route in this commercial air corridor. We don't know how long between when air traffic control would have notified the Malaysian military (especially if they lost contact after switching to Vietnamese airspace - I don't know if this would have affected anything?). And the first thought of a hijacking would probably be to look for an anomaly flying somewhere off course rather than checking the planes flying a normal commercial route. If that's really what they did, then it's brilliant planning to (a) make your turn when there might be some natural confusion as you switch airspace and (b) blend into the natural flight path of other planes.

As noted in the Reuters article, countries aren't always on high-alert looking for these things, so they may not have even been actively monitoring the traffic - we no longer really live in a world where you expect that another country might invade you, so defenses may be a bit more relaxed. India's radars might not have even been on, apparently.

Agree on the altitude thing, but I was under the impression that the altitude data was considered unreliable based on the impossible-to-do 40k drop in a minute?

 

heyp - You're theory is no longer plausible. If Malaysia shot the plane out of the sky they wouldn't be asking for other countrie's help in finding it. They would have egg all over their face if they shot it down and also wasted everyone else's time. Also, just because it showed up as blips on military radar doesn't mean they were actively tracking it.

Missing Malaysia plane: Malaysia requests countries' help

Some 25 countries are now involved in a vast search operation for the missing airliner that disappeared over a week ago, Malaysian officials say.

The search area - from central Asia to the southern Indian Ocean - takes in large tracts of land and sea.

An already complex search operation has become even more difficult, Malaysia's acting transport minister says.

Crew, passengers and ground staff are being investigated after it was confirmed the jet was commandeered.

A former 777 pilot has told me how easy it is to switch off most of the systems that track an aircraft. Most pilots would know how to do it - though traditional radar would still pick up the presence of a plane.

Firstly, most systems, like the transponder, the radio, the ACARS etc, have what is effectively an "off" switch.

Secondly, every electrical system also has a circuit-breaker, a bit like the fuse box in your house. The pilot has a panel of hundreds of buttons above his or her head; if they pull the right one, then the system switches off. The breakers are essential to isolate electrical systems if they overheat or catch fire.

But if you switch anything off, an orange warning light appears on a screen in front of the crew. So it is highly unlikely one could do it without the other noticing.

And the pilot may still not know about every system the aircraft has that talks to satellites - which could explain how this aircraft was sending out pings despite everything else being switched off.

The idea of hacking into an aircraft's systems has also been mooted, but I am told this is far less likely on an aeroplane such as this and also that the manufacturers have put in a lot of work to stop this happening.

One final thing: if this aircraft flew low over land, and people on board knew there was a problem, why did no-one try to make a phone call?

Investigators are trying to obtain more radar and satellite data from any of the countries that Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 may have passed over, with its 239 crew and passengers.

The leaders of several Asian countries have been briefed by the Malaysia government in what acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein has described as a new phase of the search.

"From focusing mainly on shallow seas, we are now looking at large tracts of land, crossing 11 countries, as well as deep and remote oceans," he said at a news conference.

Malaysian officials are contacting countries including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, China, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia and France.

They are also asking countries to provide assistance in the search for the plane, including satellite data and analysis, ground-search capabilities, and maritime and air assets.

After checking their radar recordings, Pakistani civil aviation officials said they had found no sign of the missing jet.

Malaysian national police chief Gen Khalid Abu Bakar said background checks had been requested on all passengers aboard the plane, but that so far nothing suspicious had been reported - though some intelligence agencies still had to respond.

The police are also reportedly looking at the family life and psychological state of the plane's pilot, Zaharie Shah, and co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid, and searched their homes on Saturday.

The two men had not asked to fly together, Mr Hishammuddin confirmed at the news conference.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26600361

 

That's weird. I never took heyp for a paranoid schizophrenic. Dim witted sure, but not a mentalist.

 

A good point and one probably worth further clarification.

The ACARS data system has two parts: information and transmission. The information portion of the message can be easily turned off from the cockpit; however, the transmission portion of the message is something that would have to be manually disabled in avionics beneath the cabin of the aircraft. It's doubtful any pilot would know how to do this, and in the case of MH370 it was not done.

But what you're left with is a "blip" being sent out once an hour for 4-5 hours after MH370 cut off communication and shut off the transponder that contained no information; just essentially an empty message that was sent back to the satellite and now investigators are trying to use those "blips" to determine the plane's relative location.

 

This also seems like pretty useful info. It would be much easier to commandeer a plane if your co-pilot was in on the deal. So if this is true, for one pilot to have done it, he'd have to have incapacitated the other pilot. It seems unlikely for one guy to have done this all on his own, so if the hijacking is true, we're probably looking at just passengers or pilot+passenger/crew member.

 

If only Liam Neeson, and Julianna Moore were on the plane...

 

It's amazing to me that tons of new cars have GPS but a Boeing 777 jet doesn't.

 

Well if the average depth of the Indian Ocean is 13k feet and the beacon can be located from 14k feet away, that doesn't bode well for efforts to locate it.

 

Yeah a gap in the plane's security is that access to the avionics beneath the plane is through a panel outside the cockpit. If a pair of hijackers took over and one went down and started flipping switches, then one of the pilots might come out to try and stop the damage. At that point the cockpit is open and it's game on.

Or a pilot is involved. If I had to pick an insider, I'd pick the 27 year old copilot.

 

Good find and thank you. It's nice to have all of that summarized in one place. I understand the strange arc of locations linked to the satellite now too.

So, so, so odd.

 

Lol please tell me you're not being serious.

 

No but it's true though: some cars have this thing called GPS now.