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

While they certainly are looking foolish now, it doesn't make their military claiming the day after the event that they had detected what could possibly have been the plane flying West. Also, those things happened within the last what? 6 hours? Again, it obviously isn't that interesting to you because you haven't been paying attention to the development of the story.

We don't have crazy conspiracy theories coming out of anywhere. The fact that the plane turned west was explainable and would have made sense if the plane had lost communications/navigation/power/etc. All plausible theories absent ANY other information.

It was ALWAYS a possibility that the plane never deviated from route and would be found along the path...HOWEVER, they have been flying over the route and near the route for 4 days.

 

Oh, I've been following it... just not surprised that the most believable theory/lead presented thus far happens to be the most likely scenario/crash site.

And again, it can be THAT hard to spot the crash debris... even if you're within 5 miles of it. Look at the recovery time for any crash over water and it always seems to be a prolonged process.

 

I don't think the Chinese screw around, they obviously downgraded the resolution and can see much better.

 

Well congratulations Occam. :grin:

However, the fact that the Vietnamese had announced they were scaling back their efforts in that area. And the fact that the United States was looking off the Andaman Islands, the Malaysians in the Strait...it does carry a little weight. There was no reason to discount their reports.

 

Vietnam scaled back their search due to them not getting any solid feedback, information, or much communication at all from Malaysia. They weren't happy that Malaysia failed to explain the "plane turned west" theories, which were later DENIED by the head of the Malaysia air-force all-together.

That's a problem when they were "directing" the whole thing... and influencing where people went/searching.

Doesn't mean they had any real tangible evidence to make those decisions, and they clearly have some logistical issues with the whole process that have made other countries frustrated.

 

First, they never claimed it was the plane. They only said they had radar data indicating it may have.

Second, they denied, but then against confirmed today that that was true.

Logistical issues aside, they were operating a search in that area and came up with nothing, and the US military trusted the data so much that it put quite a bit of resources in that location. I've only seen one report of governments being upset with the Malaysian efforts.

The fact that the transponder stopped working would indicate either a deliberate action or a catastrophic event. If there was a catastrophic event, SOME debris would have been spotted by now. Debris was spotted in the middle of the Atlantic, 1 day after the Air France crash. Another 4 to find the bulk of the floating debris, and of course another 2 years nearly to find the hull.

They aren't just flying by. They have sophisticated radar systems that can pick up a basketball bobbing on the water.

 

Why haven't the super detectives from reddit found an answer yet?

 

Can you imagine being a part of the team that's delegated with the task of getting on a ship to determine whether or not the Chinese satellite images are legitimate? That has to be one intense boat ride (or helicopter ride).

Who would even handle that task? China's navy?

 

Probably because none of the other governments would be crass enough to publicly state their frustration with a government that clearly doesn't have the necessary resources to command this thing.

Also, in regards to the Air France crash, they still had somewhat of an idea of where to start out looking. The problem here is that they had no clue of where to start... and the information has become more and more conflicting/contradictory with each passing day.

It just hasn't been handled well.

 

It's been a while since the Chinese released the satellite image. Why hasn't any planes or ships when over to search?

 

No shlt. They are unstoppable. Almost at a J.R. level when it comes to tweets.

 

I'm waiting for the US to step in and handle this. They must not have oil

 

How many EPIRBs do you need to find a giant freaking 777 airplane?

 

And the saga continues.

http://online.wsj.com/news/article_...4579434653903086282-lMyQjAxMTA0MDEwMzExNDMyWj

Missing Airplane Flew On for Hours
Engine Data Suggest Malaysia Flight Was Airborne Long After Radar Disappearance, U.S. Investigators Say

U.S. investigators suspect that Malaysia Airlines 3786.KU -2.04% Flight 370 stayed in the air for about four hours past the time it reached its last confirmed location, according to two people familiar with the details, raising the possibility that the plane could have flown on for hundreds of additional miles under conditions that remain murky.

Aviation investigators and national security officials believe the plane flew for a total of five hours based on data automatically downloaded and sent to the ground from the Boeing Co. BA -0.99% 777's engines as part of a routine maintenance and monitoring program.

That raises a host of new questions and possibilities about what happened aboard the widebody jet carrying 239 people, which vanished from civilian air-traffic control radar over the weekend, about one hour into a flight to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.

Six days after the mysterious disappearance prompted a massive international air and water search that so far hasn't produced any results, the investigation appears to be broadening in scope.

U.S. counterterrorism officials are pursuing the possibility that a pilot or someone else on board the plane may have diverted it toward an undisclosed location after intentionally turning off the jetliner's transponders to avoid radar detection, according to one person tracking the probe.

The investigation remains fluid, and it isn't clear whether investigators have evidence indicating possible terrorism or espionage. So far, U.S. national security officials have said that nothing specifically points toward terrorism, though they haven't ruled it out.

But the huge uncertainty about where the plane was headed, and why it apparently continued flying so long without working transponders, has raised theories among investigators that the aircraft may have been commandeered for a reason that appears unclear to U.S. authorities. Some of those theories have been laid out to national security officials and senior personnel from various U.S. agencies, according to one person familiar with the matter.

At one briefing, according to this person, officials were told investigators are actively pursuing the notion that the plane was diverted "with the intention of using it later for another purpose."

As of Wednesday it remained unclear whether the plane reached an alternate destination or if it ultimately crashed, potentially hundreds of miles from where an international search effort has been focused.

.....more

 

Could somebody please find Ja Rule; Get a hold of this mother****er so I can make sense of all this.

 

damn this is getting really weird now... I feel like the pilots were in on it now for sure, whatever happened.

 

The hunt...

 

What private airports or landing strips are within a radius of four hours which could realistically have been used to land, while not being detected? That cannot be that hard to find out?

 

All the data on the blackbox could be sent in real time down to the ground...but the equipment required has been decreed to expensive. I'm not saying that's the wrong decision - but it might need to be re-visited following this sort of incident.

 

Makes sense. 2/3 of the world is an ocean. We're going to do a side by side walk through of all of it to find this thing. Possibilities of a sinking airplane be damned!