Malaysia Airlines loses contact with B777-200 / MH370 enroute from KUL to PEK

I don't know much about the area where this plane went down..is there a lot of military activity in the area? This is near the South China sea, Is it possible that the Chinese accidentally shot this thing down?

 

Do 777's use the Li Ion batteries and not Ni cadmium?

Where are they located in the tail relative to the CVR, the ELT and the comm antenna that is "usually" part of the vertical stab?

Could a battery fire in flight have crippled the ELT and radio communications?

 

The great puzzlement to me is the lack of ANY DEBRIS. An in-flight explosion, crash, shoot down, or emergency water landing will leave debris. Insulation, honeycomb panels, light plastic parts, clothing, paper, etc. would be left on the surface. This incident has left nothing but a small oil streak. If it dove in at high speed there would have been plenty of material left on the surface because the impact would disassemble a lot of stuff above the surface. I wonder.

 

Could this be a case of severe clear air turbulence?

 

Regarding the lack of visible debris, and given recent reports suggesting that the aircraft may have "turned back", is there any possibility that everyone is looking in the wrong place?

In some bizarre scenario, even after comm failure, a plane theoretically could fly some distance 'below the radar' (near the surface in this case) before finally crashing, or landing somewhere….. that might put it far from the presumed search area.

 

I totally agree.

 

News here is reporting 2 guys who should of been on the flight had there passports stolen and airline records show they then took the flight.

 

This "no distress call" thing is kind of funny-- who would they have called? For what purpose?

In the case of Air France, the airplane actually did make some "distress calls" on it's own, in the sense that it sent maintenance messages via satellite back to Air France's maintenance control. Boeing offers a similar feature for the 777, but it's an option and it's not clear if Malaysian ordered it-- but I'm guessing they didn't.

"Distress calls" serve a purpose in busy airspace, where you are in regular contact with a controller. Out over the ocean, it can take 10 minutes or more just to reach a controller, if at all... and then, there is nothing they could do to help you anyway.

 

I thought so too, but they checked and it was clear skies.

They had 7.5 hours worth of fuel. The jet could not have gone further than originbally planned flight path.

Definitely no. There's no such thing is lots of military activity in this area. Up towards the Philippines maybe yes, but hardly along Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam.

 

Yeap, and they bought the tickets at the same time too. One was going towards Holland, and one more towards Germany.

I just get a feeling that the government knows more than it's revealing.

 

Any chance that it's sitting on some remote runway somewhere?

 

This is being overplayed by the media in an attempt to push the terrorism story line. Stolen passports are not an uncommon thing in this area, and one of the articles at the very bottom (way after the mention of terrorism) they say that trading stolen passports is coming for illegal immigrants trying to get to Western countries. If these guys were terrorists who brought down the plane, they would not have connecting flights through two more cities. This is much more logical than the terrorism angle.

 

Quite unlikely. My understanding is that there is quite a bit of military radar in that area, so someone knows exactly where it is-- they're just not telling us, at least not right now.

I think the Vietnamese have already said that they have a radar track of it.

 

The lack of debri and the oil slick seem to be contradictory to me, or did the plane jetison fuel to try and save the situation?

Could the pilot have managed to put the plane down in the sea with no structural damage like that time in New York (I think) and then the plane sank. This could explain the door that appears to have been found as they opened a door to escape but were unable to or something and the in rush of water ripped the door off?

It is very confusing.

The way it looks at the moment is like a perfect hostage situation, ie. they jetisoned some fuel and chucked something in the sea to stop people looking where it actually is ...

If the plane exploded in the air, unless it had a perfect fire ball there would be debri everywhere. If the plane dived into the sea at speed one would assume the sudden load on just the engines would be enough to rip the wings off ...

Who services Malaysian Airlines planes? Although it does not look like that sort of issue ... and the lack of any communication from the pilots makes no sense to this spectator. Surely it is the normal to radio in if something drastic is wrong?
Pete

 

Missing Malaysia Airlines Jet: Images Claim to Show Wreckage of MH370 Surface in Chinese Social Media

and

MH370 was involved in a "ground collision between two aircraft" at Shanghai ...
Pete

 

Fuel jettison would not cause a slick, at least not if you did it above 10,000 feet. I was once underneath an MD-11 which was jettisoning like crazy from 10,000 feet (I think) and on the ground, I didn't notice a thing-- except the massive contrail he was leaving.

If they had jettisoned, and landed in the water, the airplane would still be floating. Notice that the Airbus in the Hudson never did sink-- they towed it to the dock and lifted it out. Airplanes float pretty darn well, if they are landed in one piece.

 

Got to close the outflow valve!

 

Last I heard the oil slick had been tested and confirmed to be something out of a ship.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370: men on stolen passports looked like 'Mario Balotelli' - live | World news | theguardian.com

Those coordinates put it pretty close to Vietnam.

 

This is from Reddit

This was reported in the Vietnamese press about four hours ago (see here; Vietnamese language), and as far as I can tell, they're skeptical that this is from MH370:

The area where this new debris field was spotted is full of fishing boats, and supposedly none of them reported seeing the plane go down.

A Thai cargo ship was asked to go out to check out the area and found nothing after an hour and a half of searching.

A Vietnamese Coast Guard ship checked out the area and reported no objects found so far, after two hours. They're saying that if there was debris there before, it may have blown away in high winds.

As for the photo currently posted on avherald, Tuoi Tre (Vietnamese again) says it's a pic of yet another oil slick, not the debris field in question.

Edit: Tweaking for easier reading & more info


here is the link provided in the post: 34 máy bay, 40 tàu cùng tìm ki?m, MH370 v?n m?t m? - Chính tr? - Xã h?i - Tu?i Tr? Online

 

Just heard on the radio...

The oil slicks are NOT from an aircraft of any kind.

The 'door' looking thing spotted earlier is not... not from an aircraft.

Pooof... gone...

 

In my experience, a slick formed by the fuel from a crashed aircraft (it's like kerosene) is quit hard to see and doesn't look anything like the photos being published at the moment. In fact, I suspect any attempt to photograph the real slick associated with this crash will look just like ordinary ocean water, not like the previously published photos.

These so called slicks are almost surely caused by pollen from trees blown into the sea by offshore winds. Because the pollen is a light yellow, the streaks show up remarkably well and last for days. Wind and wave action causes the pollen to coalesce into long streaks just like the ones in the photos. Anyone who has traveled off-shore in a boat or flown in a light aircraft along the Gulf Coast of America in the springtime knows what I'm talking about.

Not to say that there isn't some oil or fuel on the water given the less than perfect compliance with environmental regulations by ships and fishing boats in that part of the world, but my bet is on pollen when it comes to what we're seeing in the current crop of aerial photographs.

 

conspiracy theory...with no basis what so ever...

absent no tangible evidence of crash or explosion thus far, with oil slicks ruled out as being from jet fuel, no debris field , or any confirmed wreckage, short of crashing into dense jungle limiting the visibility of wreckage... could a hi-jacking be plausible... aircraft contact was lost at edge of any tangible following / tracking, electronics / automated reporting can be turned off, passenger screening / aircraft security is lax in that part of the world, allowing for easy hi-jacking of plane to be used in a sinister way some time in the future...

 

someone mentioned this elsewhere. They wondered if maybe it was hi jacked and flown to North Korea. I have no opinion one way or the other, but it certainly is odd that this plane just vanished.

Right now, nobody has any idea what happened to this thing. This has got to be miserable for the families.

there was also the mention the possibility of some sort of fire being the reason there was no distress call. If there was smoke that overwhelmed the crew rapidly, they wouldn't be able to do much, but you'd think they'd be able to throw out something. The more I read about this, the creepier it gets.

 

And the US Air guys didn't even do that, if I remember correctly.

There was a Falcon 20 which ditched off Iceland, and it floated so long that the Royal Navy had to send a ship out to sink it, as it was a hazard to navigation.

The big thing is, don't open the main cabin door!