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

Did they explain where these scraps came from ?? Thanks.
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Yes: official explanation is that "these have nothing to do whatsoever with MH-370".

 

There are many other airports than Opa Locka.

Customs doesn't do anything unless you call them to come do something. I don't think there is customs to OPF. I've cleared customs at many South Florida airports but never OPF.

Tower doesn't care. They just clear you for takeoff.

 

First, are you a pilot? You've challenged me before on other threads regarding "pilotage 101" type stuff. So if you are a pilot you ask some strange and obvious questions.

Second, I didn't say just "Opa Locka". I made reference to the thousands of airports around the world where planes go for MX. I say it's much easier to steal an airplane from a random MX airport than to steal one from a commercial airport with 239 people aboard.

All friends I have that have had their planes stolen happened over seas like Central and South America and the islands. Nobody knew anything weird had happened until the owner noticed their plane was gone. I don't even lock my plane when I'm over seas because I'd rather them steal it than use a crow bar on the door and not steal it.

 

Oh the coverage on the news is beyond ridiculous! It's just painful to watch (watching it now). Everyone should turn it off until they find this airplane.

 

hey guys, I'm no pilot but would be interested in your take on this guy's theory...seems reasonable to me but again, I'm not a pilot. thanks

https://plus.google.com/106271056358366282907/posts/GoeVjHJaGBz

MH370 A different point of view. Pulau Langkawi 13,000 runway.

A lot of speculation about MH370. Terrorism, hijack, meteors. I cannot believe the analysis on CNN - almost disturbing. I tend to look for a more simple explanation of this event.

Loaded 777 departs midnight from Kuala to Beijing. Hot night. Heavy aircraft. About an hour out across the gulf towards Vietnam the plane goes dark meaning the transponder goes off and secondary radar tracking goes off.

Two days later we hear of reports that Malaysian military radar (which is a primary radar meaning the plane is being tracked by reflection rather than by transponder interrogation response) has tracked the plane on a southwesterly course back across the Malay Peninsula into the straits of Malacca.

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

The left turn is the key here. This was a very experienced senior Captain with 18,000 hours. Maybe some of the younger pilots interviewed on CNN didn't pick up on this left turn. We old pilots were always drilled to always know the closest airport of safe harbor while in cruise. Airports behind us, airports abeam us and airports ahead of us. Always in our head. Always. Because if something happens you don't want to be thinking what are you going to do - you already know what you are going to do. Instinctively when I saw that left turn with a direct heading I knew he was heading for an airport. Actually he was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi a 13,000 foot strip with an approach over water at night with no obstacles. He did not turn back to Kuala Lampur because he knew he had 8,000 foot ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier towards Langkawi and also a shorter distance.

Take a look on Google Earth at this airport. This pilot did all the right things. He was confronted by some major event onboard that made him make that immediate turn back to the closest safe airport.
For me the loss of transponders and communications makes perfect sense if a fire. There was most likely a fire or electrical fire. In the case of fire the first response if to pull all the main busses and restore circuits one by one until you have isolated the bad one.


If they pulled the busses the plane indeed would go silent. It was probably a serious event and they simply were occupied with controlling the plane and trying to fight the fire. Aviate, Navigate and lastly communicate. There are two types of fires. Electrical might not be as fast and furious and there might or might not be incapacitating smoke. However there is the possibility given the timeline that perhaps there was an overheat on one of the front landing gear tires and 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. A tire fire once going 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 only last for a few minutes depending on the smoke level. (I used to carry one of my own in a flight bag and I still carry one in my briefcase today when I fly).

What I think happened is that they were overcome by smoke and the plane just continued on the heading probably on George (autopilot) until either fuel exhaustion or fire destroyed the control surfaces and it crashed. I said four days ago you will find it along that route - looking elsewhere was pointless.

This pilot, as I say, was a hero struggling with an impossible situation trying to get that plane to Langkawi. No doubt in my mind. That's the reason for the turn and direct route. A hijack would not have made that deliberate left turn with a direct heading for Langkawi. It would probably have weaved around a bit until the hijackers decided on where they were taking it.

Surprisingly none of the reporters , officials, 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. I guess we will eventually find out when you help me spread this theory on the net and some reporters finally take a look on Google earth and put 2 and 2 together. Also a look at the age and number of cycles on those nose tires might give us a good clue too.

Fire in an aircraft demands one thing - you 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 eighties. 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. In 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 simply overcame them and they had to ditch in the ocean. Just 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. 2+2=4 That for me is the simple explanation why it turned and headed in that direction.

Smart pilot. Just didn't have the time.

 

That's what I think happened.

"Left turn" is not proven. No waypoints need to be input to make a left turn. Just turn off the autopilot and make a left turn. That's what I would do in the even of an on board fire. In fact, if I'm on fire with full fuel, I'm gonna try to crash land in the water.

 

I'm not pilot either but I like the post Wade has posted...it is refreshing in so far as it is different.
I was briefly wondering if something like that could have happened, but discounted that thought because, according to Malaysian sources, a lot of changes in Altitude and flight level occured after the - alleged - turn, this done by someone "who obviously knew exactly what he was doing"...

Rgds

 

Sushimon355, and Jason1st, that theory makes a lot of sense. I still don't understand why there wouldn't be one attempt of contact by a passenger, and why the altitude increase, but anyway.
With the clout both of you carry as pilots, I would suggest reaching out to Digital Globe. They are the company working with Tomnoob with the online satellite photos that anyone can log onto and view recent photos of the search area.
They may take you up on your theory and inspect the specific runway you have described. I would hope they would embrace any potential lead by a pilot with expertise in this field.

 

Yes, I am a pilot. I have been flying for over 30 years. Wide range of aircraft from helicopters to jets.

If the Malaysian plane turns out to be a heist, apparently it was easier to steal it with passengers because you almost never hear of airliners being stolen. I recall a 727 stolen out of Africa never to be found, presumed crashed into the Atlantic.

You piqued my interest when you inferred your friends have airliners and then you talked about your friends having their aircraft stolen.

 

Phones don't work in my plane over about 2000 feet. They especially don't work out over the ocean.

"Altitude Increase" is not fact. I wouldn't put any weight on flight path data. It's never accurate. When I look up my flights on the internet the data is many times incorrect.

 

It's not a heist. It crashed.

If you were a pilot you'd know there are many airports like Opa Locka. Tons of airliners in and out very day with zero PAX on board and very minimal security. These type airports are all over the world.

Hell man, airplanes get repo'ed every day too. Tower, Ground, Customs etc. don't care. You should know this. Too many airplanes to keep track of. They don't have the resources.

This story is "News Media Gold". They're saying whatever they want and folks are glued to the TV screen. No information=Make **** up.

 

All the more reason to reach out. You can intelligently walk through scenarios and make sense of them from experience.

 

I can't say whether it crashed or not until that has been proven one way or another.

Again, have any of your airliner owning friends had their airliners stolen? Sorry if I'm asking simplistic questions it just sounds like your boasting again...

 

You're taking my story out of context because you're reaching for any reason you can to justify your comments.

I said "it's easier to steal a plane from a random airfield in the world than it is to steal one from a commercial airport full of PAX". Nothing more. That's my only point.

How is knowing incidents of large airplanes being stolen in South America "boasting". Hell, you just commented about you knowing of one is Africa. Does that mean you're boasting?

 

You also don't have a shred of evidence it was hijacked but you love that side of the story.

 

It's not unprecedented to find planes in the Indian Ocean, but this is going to be a tough one since the location is so vague. I'd say with almost 100% certainty that's where it is.
South African Airways Flight 295 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

It still makes no sense how it's easier to steal a plane from a random airfield, especially one the size of a commercial airliner, than it is to steal one that you are flying for a job? that makes no sense. If the pilot wanted to steal a plane, why would he try to sneak onto an airfield, get in a plane (that might not be fueled) and then take off and hope that no one notices, when he can just show up to his job and fly off with one and no one will know until it's too late? It's not logical to me. Sure, it makes sense for someone who isn't a commercial airline pilot, but if we are assuming it's the pilot that did this then it makes more sense that he flew off with his own plane.

 

As I said, I'm familiar with the African 727. Can you tell me of any airliners (let's define airliner as turbine 50 seats+) stolen from South America? I'm genuinely interested.

 

I can't say I love any side. I'm very neutral, just want the facts. I'm not thrilled in the least at what has happened and whether it crashed or not it doesn't sound good for the passengers.

Without a debris field, we can't say it crashed definitively. We can say it's definitely not still flying around with its initial load of fuel.

 

A rather well written and long article this afternoon (16:30 here) in "Le Monde", a serious french newspaper; I won't post the link as it is in French, and a bit too long for me to translate, but it underlines again that there are indeed very few established facts, noting, for instance, that Malaysia Airlines is more or less doing its best (or its worst) to confuse things further.
For instance, despite yesterday’s clarification about the sequence of the co-pilot’s last words and the shutting-off of the communication’s systems, Malaysia Airlines CEO, Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, has again added to the confusion on this Tuesday, by contradicting again this information given yesterday.
Enquirers gave yesterday a chronology of the events before the last transmission, the “good night” by, allegedly, the co-pilot and then the shutting-off of the airplane’s communications systems. But the CEO of the Airline has now sowed doubts today at this, saying that: “these systems might have been shut-off before, or after, the last words heard from the plane, spoken by the co-pilot”.
Even the sequence of events changes every day...

Rgds

 

That sound interesting, but when the last call was done and when they turned the transponder/Acars off would help eliminate this as possible. Reports say part of the system was turned off before the last call. Maybe Malaysia is going with the US version now. Before they were just trying to protect the airline. We don't know what they have been told, but something must be pointing in the pilot/pilots doing this due to a non mechanical problem direction.

 

I don't find this plausible.

Fire on board (or any major malfunction), you call it in and let ATC know right away you have a problem.

Then next steps is to get the plane on the ground quickly while trying to address the issue as well.

Fire or smoke is reported right away. You never want a fire inflight, so having smoke and not calling in a distress call (that there's smoke/fire) doesn't make sense.

 

Oh, so now the new assumption is that the pilot is the hijacker? And I guess he killed everyone on board then flew the plane to his top secret island (that looks like a skull when viewed from outer space no less)?????? Right?

 

I'm surprised nobody here has brought up facts that:

1) The pilot's wife left him the day before and

2) The morning before he took off, this guy attended the (apparently sham) trial of the Malaysian opposition leader he support and was furious about the outcome of the trial.

In another life I flew SAR missions and that would have been a giant red flag to us back then. (I have a war story on why but I won't bore you all)

For the record, I'm 75% sure the answer is something similar to the last scenario posted above. (fire, turned for nearest runway but didn't make it) But the last 25% is troubled by the two facts above and the lack of ELT.

Lastly, jason1st your point about MX was valid... don't stress over people trolling you.