Topic: Malaysia Airlines loses contact with plane carrying 239 people

[exiledintheUSA]

This whole story/developments is/are fucked up.

People keep saying stuff, contradicting reports from officials and now the transponder turned off separately? Wouldn't that point to a hijack?

Maybe. Or a deliberate act by the aircrew, bizarre.  I would think that if a hijack had occured someone might have taken responsibility for it by now...

[Snail]

Search area has been widened to the Andaman Sea. Near here.

Off topic but that's awesome.

[TepidT2O]

Maybe. Or a deliberate act by the aircrew, bizarre.  I would think that any if a hijack had occured someone might have taken responsibility for it by now...

Maybe....but maybe they are waiting for evidence to be found?

I suppose there is always the chance of pilot suicide... Iirc there was an eygypt air flight that this was attributed to. (But with a co pilot I'm not sure how it could happen).

[exiledintheUSA]

Maybe....but maybe they are waiting for evidence to be found?

I suppose there is always the chance of pilot suicide... Iirc there was an eygypt air flight that this was attributed to. (But with a co pilot I'm not sure how it could happen).

It's certainly an out there theory, can't believe that we are nearly a week in and nothing....

[RobinHood]

What sort of material would a plane have to be built out of to survive a crash into the sea? Would it even be possible?

[Caligula?]

What sort of material would a plane have to be built out of to survive a crash into the sea? Would it even be possible?

Sure, it they ditch it into the sea, it could survive with minimal damage. It's highly unlikely, but not impossible. But in terms of a full on crash, I'm not sure what type of material a plane would have to be made of to survive a crash like that, and indeed even be capable of flight in the first place.

[exiledintheUSA]

Materials are not really the question.  Spead, angle of attack, roll position, discussed earlier int he thread......

It is, if it glided its way down from 35,000 ft and the aircrew could keep its horizon below its angle of attack - then it could in theory 'land' on the water and sink below the surface.  You may remember an RAF Nimrod crashing into the sea back in 1995 and remained pretty much in tact - the tail did come off on impact - it would take many, many things going 'right' for that to happen though.

Obviously, if it came in hard or in a spin then it would 99.9% be certain to break up on impact and leave a fairly obvious crash field.

[jckliew]

Day 7 and still waiting...............  #PrayforMH370   

[Skidder.]

What sort of material would a plane have to be built out of to survive a crash into the sea? Would it even be possible?

If there was a way to make a ball shaped plane out of plastic, that'd do it like.

[MichaelA]

Off topic but that's awesome.

Off the scale. Read this too. Loads more online including some footage on youTube, and there's a thread somewhere on here in the Boozer about lost tribes and weird places, but I can't find it. 

[Red_Irishman]

Off the scale. Read this too. Loads more online including some footage on youTube, and there's a thread somewhere on here in the Boozer about lost tribes and weird places, but I can't find it. 

Love this sort of stuff!

[jordyball10]

I've got a feeling we are going to see a miracle!

[Roady]

this is just getting stranger by the day.So many conflicting reports,So many reasoned theories.Its just utterly bizarre.I mean to be honest it is the most likely its crashed and theres no sign of wreckage and it will be discovered at some stage,but it is utterly strange nothing has been found so far,despite the great area being searched.

[Cruiser]

Amidst the bizareness of this I think the plane will eventually be found at the bottom of the sea and not at some remote airfield as some theories suggest.

The comms seem to have been tampered with so it looks like someone on board has played foul IMO.

[Roady]

Amidst the bizareness of this I think the plane will eventually be found at the bottom of the sea and not at some remote airfield as some theories suggest.

The comms seem to have been tampered with so it looks like someone on board has played foul IMO.

have to agree.Not only that but itd be harder to find wreckage from a crash than it would be to land a plane on some remote strip without anyone at all seeing it land,come in to land or notice it in one way or another.Its unfortunate but this plane has  crashed and searchin for the wreckage may take some time yet due to the factors involved and the area being searched being expanded.A mystery,for the time being yes it is,but its not unfortunately going to end in some miracle.

[Red Beret]

Well, if this plane has crashed on an island or some part of mainland Asia then they could be looking for wreckage in the wrong place?

[Roady]

Well, if this plane has crashed on an island or some part of mainland Asia then they could be looking for wreckage in the wrong place?

chances are its in the sea.I think it would have been noticed if it crashed on land,no matter how remote..Just my opinion of course.

[RedRabbit]

This might be a really stupid question: I presume all planes are airtight so is it possible that the pilots made a landing akin to the Hudson river landing and the plane went down intact?

I know it's highly improbable but is it possible for a fully intact plane to sink?

['Mondzz']

Starting to look more and more like a hijacking now, with 1 or both of the pilots involved.

The transponder located in the cockpit is said to have been maunally turned off.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/14/malaysia-planes-board-communications-purposely-shu/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS

Good bit of information here, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/14/us-malaysia-airlines-radar-exclusive-idUSBREA2D0DG20140314

Chinese news also reporting a woman whose father is one of the passengers on plane received a missed call from her father this morning. But when she called back, the phone was turned off. http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2014-03-14/201729710323.shtml

[HarryLabrador]

Starting to look more and more like a hijacking now, with 1 or both of the pilots involved.

The transponder located in the cockpit is said to have been maunally turned off.

Good bit of information here, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/14/us-malaysia-airlines-radar-exclusive-idUSBREA2D0DG20140314

Chinese news also reporting a woman whose father is one of the passengers on plane received a missed call from her father this morning. But when she called back, the phone was turned off. http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2014-03-14/201729710323.shtml

I smell conspiracy theories starting to gather pace here. To fuel it further, if it's a hijack, do the 2 Iranians with false passports come back into the frame?

[Red Beret]

This might be a really stupid question: I presume all planes are airtight so is it possible that the pilots made a landing akin to the Hudson river landing and the plane went down intact?

I know it's highly improbable but is it possible for a fully intact plane to sink?

I think you mean watertight?  An intact plane might float for some time but if you're talking about a plane sinking but staying intact like a submarine I can't imaging it surviving anything other than very shallow water.

There's been several hijackings where the plane has been forced to try and fly to a destination it couldn't reach hasn't there?  I remember one videoed ditching in the sea after it ran out of fuel.  No fuel would mean no fire or oil slick...

[RedRabbit]

I think you mean watertight?

Meh, same thing.   

An intact plane might float for some time but if you're talking about a plane sinking but staying intact like a submarine I can't imaging it surviving anything other than very shallow water.

I was  thinking more along the lines that if it did come down intact would it ever sink. Is a fuselage airwatertight? Was just trying to think of ways to explain away the lack of debris. The hijacking scenario that seems to be revealing itself looks more promising at any rate to explain those things away.

[Alan_X]

this is just getting stranger by the day.So many conflicting reports,So many reasoned theories.Its just utterly bizarre.I mean to be honest it is the most likely its crashed and theres no sign of wreckage and it will be discovered at some stage,but it is utterly strange understandable that nothing has been found so far,despite because of the great area being searched.

It's only strange because we don't know what happened yet. Because planes are so safe these days with safety systems backed up by built-in redundancy and because everything is checked and double checked before every flight, air disasters are almost by definition, strange and unusual events.

When we do know (which will only be after the plane is found) it will almost certainly be down to one of the following: a technical issue, weather conditions/other natural phenomena, human error, or human action (hijack or suicide for example). It could also be something like a missile strike (Korean Air 007 and others).

[Snail]

God I hate flying. Safest mode of transport, blah blah blah, etc. If it goes wrong you're probably fucked. I am not a fan.

[exiledintheUSA]

Spoke to a good contact at Inmarsat and it appears the 'Strong Indications' dicussed yesterday by the White House was the information from their systems.  Good chance that the aircraft was pinging its GPS Sats for about 4 1/2 hours after its last known locale.

[conman]

Chinese news also reporting a woman whose father is one of the passengers on plane received a missed call from her father this morning. But when she called back, the phone was turned off. http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2014-03-14/201729710323.shtml

If that was the case, they would have been able to trace the cell location from which the phone call was made.

[PhilV]

Chinese news also reporting a woman whose father is one of the passengers on plane received a missed call from her father this morning. But when she called back, the phone was turned off. http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2014-03-14/201729710323.shtml

Has that been verified by the Telecoms company? If you have a missed call can Telecoms company still determine the nearest mast where the originating call originated from or does a connection between two phones have to be made.

[Snail]

Has that been verified by the Telecoms company? If you have a missed call can Telecoms company still determine the nearest mast where the originating call originated from or does a connection between two phones have to be made.

Doesn't the phone need to be between three masts in order for it to be located, or have I been watching too many films? That seems a pretty big ask.

[PhilV]

Doesn't the phone need to be between three masts in order for it to be located, or have I been watching too many films? That seems a pretty big ask.

Could be, I am not actually sure myself.

I just saw this on the Reuters comments section as well:

The account by the New Zealander oil rig worker, Mike McKay (http://gawker.com/oil-rig-worker-says-he-saw-flight-370-crash-in-flames-1542226293), onboard the Songa Mercur oil rig, off the coast of Vietnam, on the possible crash of flight MH370 is undisputedly very detailed and is corroborated by the Chinese satellite images of the potential plane crash (both locations match very well). Now a Chinese seismologist (http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1448353/us-suggests-search-missing-flight-expand-indian-ocean-mh370-satellite) tells of an earthquake-type wave that has been detected in the South China Sea, between Malaysia and Vietnam, right about the time when flight MH370 may have crashed according to oil rig worker account, which corroborates even further the theory that the flight had a catastrophic failure and crashed in the South China Sea, some 600-700 miles NE of the Kuala Lumpur international airport, off the Vietnamese coast. This area is also not too far from the point where the plane made last contact with the KL flight controllers.

Also the Transportation Minister won't discuss the range of the military radar as it is "sensitive information" so he won't say how far it could of tracked the plane, that is terrible, if I had a family on board I'd be going mental over that bit especially.

Seems that there is a lot of info not being disclosed, don't wanna be a foil hat nut but things just seem strange, I know the area they are searching is huge but with military radars and such in that area how can it just disappear

[RobinHood]

God I hate flying. Safest mode of transport, blah blah blah, etc. If it goes wrong you're probably fucked. I am not a fan.

Me neither, even though it's probably safer than walking down the road to the shops. I think it's the sense of your safety being completely out of your hands, and if anything goes wrong everyone on the plane is going to die.

Gives me the heebie jeebies.

[red_lfc_costello]

That oil rig worker story was around 2-3days ago, but nothing more seemed to come of it, even with the BBC giving it a mention, nothing more was said.

[Snail]

Me neither, even though it's probably safer than walking down the road to the shops. I think it's the sense of your safety being completely out of your hands, and if anything goes wrong everyone on the plane is going to die.

Gives me the heebie jeebies.

I mean yeah, if you're on a bus or a train your safety is out of your hands as well but you're not going to be plummeting out of the sky.

[Slick_Beef]

Doesn't the phone need to be between three masts in order for it to be located, or have I been watching too many films? That seems a pretty big ask.

Triangulation can be used to give a more accurate result, but just being in range of one antenna already identifies the cell that the call was made from.

[Snail]

Triangulation can be used to give a more accurate result, but just being in range of one antenna already identifies the cell that the call was made from.

Ah right. Still seems far-fetched to me.

[redgriffin73]

God I hate flying. Safest mode of transport, blah blah blah, etc. If it goes wrong you're probably fucked. I am not a fan.

This. God knows why I scare myself further by reading so much about incidents like this!

[MichaelA]

Also the Transportation Minister won't discuss the range of the military radar as it is "sensitive information" so he won't say how far it could of tracked the plane, that is terrible, if I had a family on board I'd be going mental over that bit especially.

Seems that there is a lot of info not being disclosed, don't wanna be a foil hat nut but things just seem strange, I know the area they are searching is huge but with military radars and such in that area how can it just disappear

I think it will ultimately be a combination of FUBAR, compounded by a reluctance by some states to reveal the limitations or extent of their military capabilities. It seems clear to me that Malaysia and Vietnam have virtually none, that India has very little, and that China has little or no coverage of the area. But someone knows something about the Indian Ocean, or there wouldn't be a search area.


At the risk of incurring the Wrath Of Alan, I think the manner in which the information from Rolls Royce and Inmarsat has come out (piecemeal and unconfirmed) would suggest that their data has been shoved out into the open with some help from US Government agencies. That gives the US Military a fig leave to hang over it's 'capabilities' if/when they find the crash site.

[exiledintheUSA]

At the risk of incurring the Wrath Of Alan, I think the manner in which the information from Rolls Royce and Inmarsat has come out (piecemeal and unconfirmed) would suggest that their data has been shoved out into the open with some help from US Government agencies. That gives the US Military a fig leave to hang over it's 'capabilities' if/when they find the crash site.

I think you are certainly in the ball park so to speak.  Inmarsat, or at least the people I've worked with who are now there, say they have to be very careful in terms of the information it divulges as they may be impinging upon a carrier's privacy and information policies or even worse a Governments (this is the same for most in the industry including who I work for).

[eirwen]

So if it's a hijacking with the pilots involved, is there somewhere they would have gone theoretically? And would they still not call for help if something went wrong?

[CornerFlag]

Are there any political movements for some sort of independence anywhere that could have caused a takeover of sorts?  Like a Taliban hijacking or a Tamil group? (Not accusing these btw, just the first that popped into my brain).

I still think it's going to tragically be an accident, but some of the little things you hear do make your brain go "eh?"  i dunno, it just all feels like there's something different to the Air France case in that a crash was suspected straight from the off.

[Bunter]

If this aircraft was flying off course and into other airspaces then surely they would have been challenged or identified at least when they showed up on radar?

The size of the runway needed to land a 777 aswell would rule out little dirt airstrips in some remote location too. They really have no fucking clue what's going on do they?