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

I feel the same way. I really don't believe anything the Malaysians, or anyone else, are saying at this point.

 

It is reasonable and extremely crafty. But, the amount of planning, information, timing, coordination, and simple "good luck" for everything to go just right in such a scenario makes that seem to be about a million-to-one chance of being successful to me.

 

If I were a betting man I would put my chips on some greedy basta** has already began taking notes looking to profit from this.

 

I wonder if the pilot's home simulator had any landings at airfields in Pakistan? And wouldn't a 777 be worthless to use again once repainted? Once it's up, someone will grab the signal you would think. Truly bizarre.

 

Well, apparently now Malaysian officials are confirming that they have completed searching both the pilot's and the co-pilot's homes. So, I am sure they will be going (have already gone ?) through the pilot's flight simulator computer for any stored data ---- of course, he certainly could have deleted everything before he left his house that evening .

 

Agree, I think the passengers as an insurance policy would be smart IF that is the case. But, 259 people are a lot to baby sit, feed, and hope they don't unite and turn on them. I can only imagine what conditions would be like if they are being held somewhere.

 

That is exactly my point. They always claim it is for the good what they are doing and that they saved already a lot of lives already in uncovering planned terrorist attacks before they happened. Now when they really could give information they stay quiet. Why? What if they still could save lives but don't because they stay quiet?

 

You have no idea what they can or can't do. If there is something they can do, they are doing it. They don't need to give away national secrets to do stuff and to appease the blind masses. The idea that if they are withholding info from the public they must not be doing something about it as if us knowing the truth could somehow help is absurd. If it was a hijacking maybe they don't want to tip off the hijackers as to what they know? Clearly if this was a hijacking the hijackers tried to hide it.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

 

Good point. The element of surprise could be critical if this turns out to be a hijacking. The agency's could care less about the public's comments whether they are competent or not. I suppose in a hijacking scenario they will release info they would like the hijackers to know. That would keep them from knowing what the authorities know, but us also.
Who knows????

 

Also a good point.

Investigators saying, "It's down in the Indian Ocean....It's down in the Indian Ocean....."

...might just keep the perpetrators (and their supporters) a little more off guard while the authorities are really investigating other locations and in hot pursuit of the other leads.

Advertising to suspects, who have a 5 day head start on you, that you know who they are (or who they may be) and where you think they are (or might be)...... is not going to help you catch up to them too much.

 

Exactly. In this scenario, wondering why the CIA hasn't told us everything they know is akin to wondering why the CIA didn't tell us they knew where bin Laden was hiding before killing him. It's ridiculous.

 

I think it is IBM

 

I personally doubt it, although I'm not prepared to say it's impossible. I flew the 767 which has a ceiling of 43199 feet. The 777 has a ceiling of 43190 feet, nearly identical. On one occasion I took my 767 to 43 thousand feet and it wasn't very comfortable. At that altitude there are only a handful of knots between stall buffet (if you fly a bit too slow) and mach buffet (if you fly a bit too fast). Plus the aircraft is really right on the limits of it's performance. I don't want to say it's impossible to zoom climb a few thousand feet more, but to do so you would have to build speed and you can't easily do that when you're already right up against the mach limit. And once you zoom up to 45k you're going to be slow, possibly a little bit nose up, and I guarantee you that stall buffet is not something you like to experience in a big lumbering airliner. Could you abuse the engines by over temping them? Perhaps, but even then I'm not sure you could climb to 45k.

In my opinion, the most likely reason for the 45 thousand foot report is faulty radar data and/or faulty interpretation. Remember, we're talking about a military primary (skin paint) radar return, which is far, far removed from the kind of accurate data you get when an Air Traffic Control (ATC) radar interrogates a functioning transponder.

If the aircraft were at 40k, for example, it wouldn't surprise me if a long range, primary skin paint radar return would report it as 45k, or 35k for that matter. The longer the range, the less resolution you get from primary radar returns.

Furthermore, the Military subsequently reported a much lower altitude over a vary short time period. To me, it's unlikely a 777 would perform such a dive, especially since a following report showed the aircraft back up at high altitude.

I think they are simply working with some sketchy radar information. Remember, they weren't tracking some kind of inbound threat. In that case, you would expect the radar operators to be on their game. But in this situation, these radar operators were in a relaxed mode much like the Mall Cop drinking coffee in front of a bunch of TV monitors in the middle of the night when nothing is going on. As far as I know, this Military radar information has all been reconstructed after the fact. I haven't heard anyone claim that the military guys were immediately put on alert to consider this aircraft some kind of threat as soon as ATC lost communications. Remember, there's a huge difference between having a monitoring system operating with ops normal as opposed to having the same system on full alert watching for a specific item of interest. Mall Cops with TVs and Military radar operators with Early Warning Radars are the same in this respect.

Bottom line: I don't believe the aircraft was ever at 45 thousand feet.

 

+1

Not to mention these guys were only an hour into the flight with a fair load of fuel/passengers & probably cargo too.

 

So... the hypoxia thing - not so much? [other thread]



Jedi

 

Almost a certainty it never happened.

 

35K is high enough for the whole hypoxia, sleep, dead routine. 45K just makes it happen faster.

Altitude in Flight level Time of Useful Consciousness Altitude in meters Altitude in feet
FL 150 30 min or more 4,572 m 15,000
FL 180 20 to 30 min 5,486 m 18,000
FL 220 5-10 min 6,705 m 22,000
FL 250 3 to 6 min 7,620 m 25,000
FL 280 2.5 to 3 mins 8,534 m 28,000
FL 300 1 to 3 mins 9,144 m 30,000
FL 350 30 sec to 60 sec 10,668 m 35,000
FL 400 15 to 20 sec 12,192 m 40,000
FL 430 9 to 15 sec 13,106 m 43,000
FL 500 and above 6 to 9 sec 15,240 m 50,000

 

Morning update, not much:

The 777 had fuel for about eight flight hours. Taking this into account, there are 634 possible landing strips (defined as at least 1 mile long, or more) in the range.
Officials now saying that the south-west flight track seems more probable that the North-west, where there are many military radars all along, that would have picked the plane.
Police investigating the pilots homes and past activity.
Malaysian officials say that there is still nothing that allows definitive confirmation of an Highjack, even if they admit that the shut-down of transponders and radio has necessarly been done by somebody in the know.
Angry reaction from China at the management of information by Malaysia since the beginning.

Rgds

 

Which, considering the Chinese government bureaucracy's track record for open disclosure of potentially embarrassing information, is not altogether irony-free.

 

I somehow feel convinced that the US knows where this plane is, and will let the locals push on as long as we are not threatened. This is to guard our ISR capability. I also believe planted 'red herring' stories are out there as to not alert the perps. We have a history of doing that.
Crazy, I know.

 

This just in from the tinfoil brigade-


http://www.pisau.net/russia-puzzled-over-malaysia-airlines-mh370-capture-by-us-navy-prayformh370/

Russia “Puzzled” Over Malaysia Airlines #MH370 “Capture” By US Navy #prayformh370

Home / Berita Utama / Berita Nasional / Russia “Puzzled” Over Malaysia Airlines #MH370 “Capture” By US Navy #prayformh370


A new report circulating in the Kremlin today prepared by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces (GRU) states that Aerospace Defence Forces (VKO) experts remain “puzzled” as to why the United States Navy “captured and then diverted” a Malaysia Airlines civilian aircraft from its intended flight-path to their vast and highly-secretive Indian Ocean base located on the Diego Garcia atoll.

According to this report, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (also marketed as China Southern Airlines flight 748 through a codeshare) was a scheduled passenger flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China, when on 8 March this Boeing 777-200ER aircraft “disappeared” in flight with 227 passengers on board from 15 countries, most of whom were Chinese, and 12 crew members.

Interesting to note, this report says, was that Flight 370 was already under GRU “surveillance” after it received a “highly suspicious” cargo load that had been traced to the Indian Ocean nation Republic of Seychelles, and where it had previously been aboard the US-flagged container ship MV Maersk Alabama.

What first aroused GRU suspicions regarding the MV Maersk Alabama, this report continues, was that within 24-hours of off-loading this “highly suspicious” cargo load bound for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the two highly-trained US Navy Seals assigned to protect it, Mark Daniel Kennedy, 43, and Jeffrey Keith Reynolds, 44, were found dead under “suspicious circumstances.”

Both Kennedy and Reynolds, this report says, were employed by the Virginia Beach, Virginia-based maritime security firm The Trident Group which was founded by US Navy Special Operations Personnel (SEAL’s) and Senior US Naval Surface Warfare Officers and has long been known by the GRU to protect vital transfers of both atomic and biological materials throughout the world.

Upon GRU “assests” confirming that this “highly suspicious” cargo was aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on 8 March, this report notes, Moscow notified China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) of their concerns and received “assurances” that “all measures” would be taken as to ascertain what was being kept so hidden when this aircraft entered into their airspace.

However, this report says, and as yet for still unknown reasons, the MSS was preparing to divert Flight 370 from its scheduled destination of Beijing to Haikou Meilan International Airport (HAK) located in Hainan Province (aka Hainan Island).

Prior to entering the People Liberation Army (PLA) protected zones of the South China Sea known as the Spratly Islands, this report continues, Flight 370 “significantly deviated” from its flight course and was tracked by VKO satellites and radar flying into the Indian Ocean region and completing its nearly 3,447 kilometer (2,142 miles) flight to Diego Garcia.



Critical to note about Flight 370’s flight deviation, GRU experts in this report say, was that it occurred during the same time period that all of the Spratly Island mobile phone communications operated by China Mobile were being jammed.

China Mobile, it should be noted, extended phone coverage in the Spratly Islands in 2011 so that PLA soldiers stationed on the islands, fishermen, and merchant vessels within the area would be able to use mobile services, and can also provide assistance during storms and sea rescues.

As to how the US Navy was able to divert Flight 370 to its Diego Garcia base, this report says, appears to have been accomplished remotely as this Boeing 777-200ER aircraft is equipped with a fly-by-wire (FBW) system that replaces the conventional manual flight controls of an aircraft with an electronic interface allowing it to be controlled like any drone-type aircraft.

However, this report notes, though this aircraft can be controlled remotely, the same cannot be said of its communication systems which can only be shut down manually; and in the case of Flight 370, its data reporting system was shut down at 1:07 a.m., followed by its transponder (which transmits location and altitude) which was shut down at 1:21 a.m.

What remains “perplexing” about this incident, GRU analysts in this report say, are why the American mainstream media outlets have yet to demand from the Obama regime the radar plots and satellite images of the Indian Ocean and South China Sea regions as the US military covers this entire area from Diego Garcia like no other seas in the world due to its vital shipping and air lanes.

Most sadly, this report concludes, the US is actually able to conceal the reason(s) for the “disappearance” of Flight 370 as they have already done so after the events of 11 September 2001 when the then Bush regime “disappeared” American Airlines Flight 77 and its 64 passengers and crew after falsely claiming it hit the Pentagon, but which was confirmed by the CNN News Service [see video HERE] not to have happened.

 

Is that for real? Seems a little out there.

 

No, It is nut-job journalism...

 

There are no on board capabilities on a 777 for intervention into its fly by wire design. I have a type rating on, and flew the 777 for AA, so I have a little knowledge about this airplane. Where do these whack jobs get this crap? Total bull****.

 

Umm, fly by wire has no such capabilities without the autopilot engaged, and even then its a BS theory that has been espoused but never demonstrated. Of course the jet could be rigged to do that as the 707 was but that would require tons of maintenance engineering and on board work, something hardly covert actions could do in the light of day. Assuming that happened, merely turning off the autopilot and utilizing a secondary system (a la the old manual reversion of yesteryear) would nullify this I believe. Its sounds plausible but in reality the damn thing was probably hijacked and blown up. The big question then is WHY because no groups have claimed responsibility. Really strange.