Malaysian Airlines Loses Contact With Plane

[BeeGuy]

Ibiwaij

[HunterDave]

Originally Posted by BeeGuy

Ibiwaij

Yeah, I bet that you're right.

[deanmc]

Originally Posted by TreeGuy

I like and respect you, Keg. You know that. However, given the gravity of the situation and rwm's vast expertise, this is a horrible decision!

Another member posted this without punishment:






How is that any different?

Was any consideration given to the brand new member who smells like an old/current one who engaged said suspended member given any consideration? Dollars to doughnuts he's banned for being a multiple profile within the month. Sad.

You guys allow trolls to run around at will, and an expert in the field on an unbelievably important thread gets punted for something that is marginally marginal AT BEST!

Come on.

In support of rmw, I'd like to formally request the exact same suspension. Thank you.

Tree

Absolutely! Well said. It becoming more and more obvious that there is no clear vision of what this forum should be. Some serious inconsistencies in punishment.
Its been a sad experience watching the slow downhill slide. Most of the knowledgeable, serious, true outdoorsmen don't even bother anymore.

[moosemad]

The plane was still flying 7 hours after the electronics were shut down according to satellite info. Still a pretty big search area.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ry?id=22922961

[dale7637]

I am not a conspiracy theory kind of guy... But...

I will garauntee that there is a government agency or two that knows exactly where this bird is and what happened.


They found bin laden in the middle of nowhere.. If they can find one man, they certainly won't loose a jumbo jet.


Mho. Take it for what it's worth.

[elkdump]

Originally Posted by dale7637

I am not a conspiracy theory kind of guy... But...

I will garauntee that there is a government agency or two that knows exactly where this bird is and what happened.


They found bin laden in the middle of nowhere.. If they can find one man, they certainly won't loose a jumbo jet.


Mho. Take it for what it's worth.

if you buy the Bin Ladin story 100% ??? then you believe in Santa Clause also !

so maybe the Jet flew up to visit Santa's Reindeer and landed at the North Pole ?

[CaberTosser]

How does one land a bird that size anywhere it's not expected and keep it a secret? Its either at a remote (possibly abandoned) old airstrip, somewhere that the locals sympathize with whatever the hijackers cause is, or where the gov't sympathizes with the undertaking. Or crashed in a jungle. What of the passengers though if it landed intact? Executed? Hostages? It would take some logistics to feed them and keep them contained if they're alive. What a horrible act.

[Grizzly Adams]

Originally Posted by dale7637

I am not a conspiracy theory kind of guy... But...

I will garauntee that there is a government agency or two that knows exactly where this bird is and what happened.


They found bin laden in the middle of nowhere.. If they can find one man, they certainly won't loose a jumbo jet.


Mho. Take it for what it's worth.

But, it took a LOONG time. I'm sure they'll find it, cause they can't afford not to, for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is flight safety. Just happened to read a book on the Gimli glider. The pilot managed to put that aircraft down, just using the Ram Air turbine, the power source of last resort. Interesting watching American tv reports, they're beating this story to death and a lot of opinions from logical to loony coming up.

Grizz

[220swifty]

Originally Posted by BeeGuy

Ibiwaij

Inside job? Or Islamic jihadist?

[greylynx]

Some of the stories out of the BBC and Radio China....Whoa.

Hey rwm1273. Have you changed the comms and transponder on or seen a Boeing 777 with black spray paint over "Malaysian Air Lines" over where you are working?

[Ken07AOVette]

No word at all, very strange but not unheard of

[twofifty]

Originally Posted by Ken07AOVette

No word at all, very strange but not unheard of

Yet still unheard from.

[CaberTosser]

This article profiling the two pilots sure seems to sway suspicion away from them, or at the very least away from the captain.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...to-emerge.html

MH370: profile of missing Malaysian Airline plane's pilots starts to emerge

With Malaysian police searching the homes of flight MH370's pilot and co-pilot, attention is growing on whether there was anything in the two men's backgrounds that could explain the fate of the missing plane

While on the surface the pair appeared to be normal – and according to most – likeable, police are now scrutinising the psychological background of both pilots, their family lives and their connections for any possible link to extremists or any motive for involvement in the flight's disappearance.

When Prime Minister Najib Razak confirmed that Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 had been seized mid-air and re-routed from its path to the Indian Ocean, the finger of suspicion pointed straight at its passengers and crew.


Whoever had taken the fate of the 239 people on board in their hands had a sophisticated knowledge of aircraft systems – they had disabled the radar and communications, and switched off its transponder, which signals its position to satellites. And in all probability no one on board had as much expertise as the pilot, Captain Zaharie Shah.


Now, according to the prime minister, he is one of the 239 passengers and crew who are being profiled by intelligence agencies to identify one of the most baffling plane seizures in aviation history.

"The two pilots are of particular focus in the investigation because they were in control of the aircraft and had the most detailed knowledge to do what was done to the communications equipment," said one Western source.

The suspicion of Captain Shah, a 53-year-old grandfather and father of three grown up children, was bolstered in profiles of him that highlighted his obsessive passion for aircraft – he even had his own airline flight simulator at home and flew model remote controlled planes as a hobby.

His co-pilot, 27 year old bachelor Fariq Abdul Hamid was portrayed as a playboy who entertained female passengers in his cockpit, where they flirted and smoked cigarettes.

But according to their devoted and distraught friends and families they cut extremely unlikely terrorist figures – if they had in fact pulled their Boeing 777 airliner off its course, they would have done it on the basis of extraordinary covers.

Captain Shah is a mild-mannered and caring social and political activist who raises money for the poor and loves his job so much that he badgers friends into using his flight simulator to share his pleasure.

His friend Stephen Chong, a fellow supporter of the Malaysian People's Justice Party [PKR] opposition group, said they had met as 'social activists', raising money for the country's underprivileged by organising fundraising cycle rides. "During the election he was flying most of the time but whenever he was home, he would help out with environmental events," he said.

He has his own Do-It-Yourself video channel on YouTube where he tutors the impractical on how to repair their air-conditioners, create ice machines, and make other gadgets more energy-efficient. He was also a proud cook, posting pictures of himself at the stove and of his dishes, and taking home-cooked food to community events.

"But his passion was for flying. He build his own flight simulator to share the joy of flying with friends. He used to say it was more difficult than flying a real plane," he said.

The captain had built the six-screen flight simulator at his home. While fellow pilots have also said it is quite common for aviators to bring their work home, and rare for would-be hijackers to advertise their simulators on the Internet, police will be examining the simulator for relevant clues.

He is Muslim but not especially committed or pious – he went to mosque for Friday Prayers as most Malay men do, he added.

His hobbies did not fit the more common profile of the Muslim terrorist – he was neither disaffected nor marginalised. He was a widely respected expert in his field, totting up over 18,000 miles in a three decade career that saw him pilot Boeing 737s, 777s and Airbus A300s. In his spare time he loved to watch the atheist lectures Richard Dawkins and the cross-dressing comedy of Eddie Izzard.

He had been a keen footballer at school, a promising science student and had trained as a pilot in the Philippines before joining Malaysia Airlines in 1981.

He had no financial difficulties, no obvious enemies, but devoted students as an instructor and simulator examiner.

"Everyone who knew him, liked him," said one 43-year-old captain who has known Mr Shah for nearly 25 years. "I flew as his co-pilot many times. He has always been a good pilot, very professional."

"He was an aviation tech geek. You could ask him anything and he would help you. That is the kind of guy he is," a former co-pilot of Shah's told Reuters. "We used to tease him. We would ask him, why are you bringing your work home?" said another former co-worker of the Malaysia Airlines pilot.

Mr Shah's co-pilot, 27-year-old Fariq Hamid, the son of a high-ranking civil servant, seems an equally unlikely terrorist. The son of a high-ranking civil servant in Selangor, he joined Malaysia Airlines in 2007 and had only just started co-piloting the Boeing 777.

The eldest of five children, Mr Hamid was also planning his wedding, said Ayop Jantan, his neighbour.

He lived with his parents in a smart detached family house in Kuala Lumpur's Shah Alam middle class enclave, 40 minutes from the airport.

Mr Jantan said Mr Hamid's father was supremely proud of his son. "To be a pilot is a very high status job in Malaysia, like a doctor or lecturer," he said. But the family had left their home early on Saturday consumed with grief, he said. "When a parent receives news like this ..." he added.

At the mosque closest to Mr Hamid's home in a suburb of Kuala Lumpur, Ahmad Sarafi Ali Asrah described him as a "good boy, a good Muslim, humble and quiet".

"His father still cries when he talks about Fariq. His mother too," he added.

The strongest 'evidence' against him is the comments of a South African woman who told an Australian news channel that he had flirted with her and another woman in the cockpit during a flight from Phuket to Kuala Lumpur in 2011, when they smoked and posed for photographs.

He was "possibly a little bit sleazy," said Jonti Roos when Mr Hamid and his colleague invited her and another woman out for the night in the capital. Malaysia Airlines said it was shocked by the claims and is investigating.

Mr Hamid was also pictured with the CNN correspondent Richard Quest in his cockpit, when the journalist visited flight MH370 when he was training. Mr Quest watched him land the plane and described it on television as "textbook perfect".

Neither of the men fit the profile, which raises the possibility that there may have been passengers on the flight who knew even more about flying aeroplanes than Captain Shah – the ultimate "aviation geek".

American officials suggested on Saturday that three different pieces of signalling equipment had been disabled and that one of them was located outside the cockpit. The implication is that at least two people had collaborated to change the course of flight MH370 and make it and its crew and passengers disappear.

If the captain and co-pilot had been involved they will have given a new meaning to the term 'clean skins'.

[WayneChristie]

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/03...5.html?3838383

[skidderman]

I think they are just reaching at straws. Don't think it will ever be found.

[nelsonob1]

The Indian Ocean is a vast, vast area in which to try and find bits of air plane. The are likely millions of tonnes of debris floating on that Ocean and each day that passes pushes the pieces further and further away from each other. It may take months to find anything from that poor plane.

The idea that someone landed it in some discreet location is the stuff of movies. None can hide a plane with 250 passengers without word getting out. The conspiracy would involve too many people.

[greylynx]

Originally Posted by nelsonob1

The Indian Ocean is a vast, vast area in which to try and find bits of air plane. The are likely millions of tonnes of debris floating on that Ocean and each day that passes pushes the pieces further and further away from each other. It may take months to find anything from that poor plane.

The idea that someone landed it in some discreet location is the stuff of movies. None can hide a plane with 250 passengers without word getting out. The conspiracy would involve too many people.

Yet there are satellites that can read the front page of a newspaper. And those are the old ones.

Quite a neat incident.

Us sheep are just being held on mute until the story unfolds.

But I wonder why?

[twofifty]

quote: " But I wonder why?"

Maybe to manufacture consent.

[tri777]

Originally Posted by greylynx

Yet there are satellites that can read the front page of a newspaper. And those are the old ones.

Quite a neat incident.

Us sheep are just being held on mute until the story unfolds.

But I wonder why?

X2
An on that note,i wonder what that 'seismic detection'
was all about...???...

[ESOXangler]

Originally Posted by greylynx

Yet there are satellites that can read the front page of a newspaper. And those are the old ones.

Quite a neat incident.

Us sheep are just being held on mute until the story unfolds.

But I wonder why?

Perhaps because it's an excellent distraction from the big bear in the east!

[nelsonob1]

Originally Posted by greylynx

Yet there are satellites that can read the front page of a newspaper. And those are the old ones.

Quite a neat incident.

Us sheep are just being held on mute until the story unfolds.

But I wonder why?

There are telescopes that can see millions of light years away, but that is not the issue. The question is not whether those satellites can find a newspaper and read it, but rather can they find the exact one that I left floating in the indian ocean.

I can shoot my rifle at a mountain a kilometre away but what are the chances of it hitting the elk I can not see? Now multiply that by the size of the indian ocean and try and find the pieces of debris specific to that plane. The probabilities are ridiculously small.

[tri777]

Originally Posted by ESOXangler

Perhaps because it's an excellent distraction from the big bear in the east!

No, that's what Sochi was for.

[Ruger1022]

I have a feeling the Aussies may have found the plane in the South Indian Ocean. It make sense it may be there. The theory I have settled with is that the plane had an emergency. Cabin and cockpit filled with smoke incapacitating and suffocating everyone on board. Once the Pilots realized the emergency the turned toward the closest runway, to the Southwest. By then it may have been to late. So basically the plane flew 6-7 hours toward the South Indian Ocean on autopilot until it crashed.

R.I.P to everyone on board,
I hope they find somthing today.

[skidderman]

Why do they have the ability to turn the transponder off? Seems to me both in 9/11 and in this case if there was no way to turn it off problem solving would be a lot easier.

[CaberTosser]

Originally Posted by Ruger1022

I have a feeling the Aussies may have found the plane in the South Indian Ocean. It make sense it may be there. The theory I have settled with is that the plane had an emergency. Cabin and cockpit filled with smoke incapacitating and suffocating everyone on board. Once the Pilots realized the emergency the turned toward the closest runway, to the Southwest. By then it may have been to late. So basically the plane flew 6-7 hours toward the South Indian Ocean on autopilot until it crashed.
R.I.P to everyone on board,
I hope they find somthing today.

That's they theory floated by this article, it seems better than most, even if it does lack the "24" worthy plotline:

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03...ectrical-fire/

Credit to the author/pilot Chris Goodfellow

"There has been a lot of speculation about Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Terrorism, hijacking, meteors. I cannot believe the analysis on CNN; it’s almost disturbing. I tend to look for a simpler explanation, and I find it with the 13,000-foot runway at Pulau Langkawi.

We know the story of MH370: A loaded Boeing 777 departs at midnight from Kuala Lampur, headed to Beijing. A hot night. A heavy aircraft. About an hour out, across the gulf toward Vietnam, the plane goes dark, meaning the transponder and secondary radar tracking go off. Two days later we hear reports that Malaysian military radar (which is a primary radar, meaning the plane is tracked by reflection rather than by transponder interrogation response) has tracked the plane on a southwesterly course back across the Malay Peninsula into the Strait of Malacca.


The left turn is the key here. Zaharie Ahmad Shah1 was a very experienced senior captain with 18,000 hours of flight time. We old pilots were drilled to know what is the closest airport of safe harbor while in cruise. Airports behind us, airports abeam us, and airports ahead of us. They’re always in our head. Always. If something happens, you don’t want to be thinking about what are you going to do–you already know what you are going to do. When I saw that left turn with a direct heading, I instinctively knew he was heading for an airport. He was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi, a 13,000-foot airstrip with an approach over water and no obstacles. The captain did not turn back to Kuala Lampur because he knew he had 8,000-foot ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier toward Langkawi, which also was closer.

Take a look at this airport on Google Earth. The pilot did all the right things. He was confronted by some major event onboard that made him make an immediate turn to the closest, safest airport.

When I heard this I immediately brought up Google Earth and searched for airports in proximity to the track toward the southwest.

For me, the loss of transponders and communications makes perfect sense in a fire. And there most likely was an electrical fire. In the case of a fire, the first response is to pull the main busses and restore circuits one by one until you have isolated the bad one. If they pulled the busses, the plane would go silent. It probably was a serious event and the flight crew was occupied with controlling the plane and trying to fight the fire. Aviate, navigate, and lastly, communicate is the mantra in such situations.

There are two types of fires. An electrical fire might not be as fast and furious, and there may or may not be incapacitating smoke. However there is the possibility, given the timeline, that there was an overheat on one of the front landing gear tires, it blew on takeoff and started slowly burning. Yes, this happens with underinflated tires. Remember: Heavy plane, hot night, sea level, long-run takeoff. There was a well known accident in Nigeria of a DC8 that had a landing gear fire on takeoff. Once going, a tire fire would produce horrific, incapacitating smoke. Yes, pilots have access to oxygen masks, but this is a no-no with fire. Most have access to a smoke hood with a filter, but this will last only a few minutes depending on the smoke level. (I used to carry one in my flight bag, and I still carry one in my briefcase when I fly.)

What I think happened is the flight crew was overcome by smoke and the plane continued on the heading, probably on George (autopilot), until it ran out of fuel or the fire destroyed the control surfaces and it crashed. You will find it along that route–looking elsewhere is pointless.

Ongoing speculation of a hijacking and/or murder-suicide and that there was a flight engineer on board does not sway me in favor of foul play until I am presented with evidence of foul play.

We know there was a last voice transmission that, from a pilot’s point of view, was entirely normal. “Good night” is customary on a hand-off to a new air traffic control. The “good night” also strongly indicates to me that all was OK on the flight deck. Remember, there are many ways a pilot can communicate distress. A hijack code or even transponder code off by one digit would alert ATC that something was wrong. Every good pilot knows keying an SOS over the mike always is an option. Even three short clicks would raise an alert. So I conclude that at the point of voice transmission all was perceived as well on the flight deck by the pilots.

But things could have been in the process of going wrong, unknown to the pilots.

Evidently the ACARS went inoperative some time before. Disabling the ACARS is not easy, as pointed out. This leads me to believe more in an electrical problem or an electrical fire than a manual shutdown. I suggest the pilots probably were not aware ACARS was not transmitting.

As for the reports of altitude fluctuations, given that this was not transponder-generated data but primary radar at maybe 200 miles, the azimuth readings can be affected by a lot of atmospherics and I would not have high confidence in this being totally reliable. But let’s accept for a minute that the pilot may have ascended to 45,000 feet in a last-ditch effort to quell a fire by seeking the lowest level of oxygen. That is an acceptable scenario. At 45,000 feet, it would be tough to keep this aircraft stable, as the flight envelope is very narrow and loss of control in a stall is entirely possible. The aircraft is at the top of its operational ceiling. The reported rapid rates of descent could have been generated by a stall, followed by a recovery at 25,000 feet. The pilot may even have been diving to extinguish flames.

But going to 45,000 feet in a hijack scenario doesn’t make any good sense to me.

Regarding the additional flying time: On departing Kuala Lampur, Flight 370 would have had fuel for Beijing and an alternate destination, probably Shanghai, plus 45 minutes–say, 8 hours. Maybe more. He burned 20-25 percent in the first hour with takeoff and the climb to cruise. So when the turn was made toward Langkawi, he would have had six hours or more hours worth of fuel. This correlates nicely with the Inmarsat data pings being received until fuel exhaustion.

Fire in an aircraft demands one thing: Get the machine on the ground as soon as possible.

The now known continued flight until time to fuel exhaustion only confirms to me that the crew was incapacitated and the flight continued on deep into the south Indian ocean.

There is no point speculating further until more evidence surfaces, but in the meantime it serves no purpose to malign pilots who well may have been in a struggle to save this aircraft from a fire or other serious mechanical issue. Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah was a hero struggling with an impossible situation trying to get that plane to Langkawi. There is no doubt in my mind. That’s the reason for the turn and direct route. A hijacking would not have made that deliberate left turn with a direct heading for Langkawi. It probably would have weaved around a bit until the hijackers decided where they were taking it.

Surprisingly, none of the reporters, officials, or other pilots interviewed have looked at this from the pilot’s viewpoint: If something went wrong, where would he go? Thanks to Google Earth I spotted Langkawi in about 30 seconds, zoomed in and saw how long the runway was and I just instinctively knew this pilot knew this airport. He had probably flown there many times.

Fire in an aircraft demands one thing: Get the machine on the ground as soon as possible. There are two well-remembered experiences in my memory. The AirCanada DC9 which landed, I believe, in Columbus, Ohio in the 1980s. That pilot delayed descent and bypassed several airports. He didn’t instinctively know the closest airports. He got it on the ground eventually, but lost 30-odd souls. The 1998 crash of Swissair DC-10 off Nova Scotia was another example of heroic pilots. They were 15 minutes out of Halifax but the fire overcame them and they had to ditch in the ocean. They simply ran out of time. That fire incidentally started when the aircraft was about an hour out of Kennedy. Guess what? The transponders and communications were shut off as they pulled the busses.

Get on Google Earth and type in Pulau Langkawi and then look at it in relation to the radar track heading. Two plus two equals four. For me, that is the simple explanation why it turned and headed in that direction. Smart pilot. He just didn’t have the time."

Chris Goodfellow has 20 years experience as a Canadian Class-1 instrumented-rated pilot for multi-engine planes. His theory on what happened to MH370 first appeared on Google+. We’ve copyedited it with his permission.

[CanuckShooter]

It is possible they just flew in the slip stream of another plane...they could avoid radar detection and then just drop down and land where they were headed. The key is that the transponders were disabled, that rules out accidents and put nefarious actions at the top of the list. I don't doubt the jet survived, the passengers is another matter.

[jackrabbit000]

Originally Posted by greylynx

Yet there are satellites that can read the front page of a newspaper. And those are the old ones.

Quite a neat incident.

Us sheep are just being held on mute until the story unfolds.

But I wonder why?

I agree, take a look at Google Earth. The images are so clear and you can zoom right in that's it's not even funny. And these 3 satellite images released are a total joke. All it's doing is scattering search & rescue crews all over the place. Most likely a ploy sending them away from where the plane is actually at. It wouldn't surprise me one bit.

[BGSH]

Remember Helios flight 522? that could also be a strong possibility....

[300magman]

Originally Posted by BGSH

Remember Helios flight 522? that could also be a strong possibility....

A decompression leading to asphyxia wouldn't explain the transponder being turned off though....

[Burglecut83]

Originally Posted by ali#1

This story has quite a few twists.

See ya I won't miss you