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

Erik,

Not for the sake of contradicting you, be assured...
Here, the french press has been talking about his political opinions from day one, but as such it doesn't seem a factor sufficient in itself for high-jacking a plane. His life, his home has also been much discussed over here; not conclusive arguments, as there are opinions to the contrary: one of his collegues has testified that he was a very competent and consciensious pilot, with over 18.000 hours, that he refused to believe being capable of high-jacking his own plane.

Rgds

 

In the "tribal regions of Pakistan"? Well, should this prove to be the case, the beers are on me! Have those who are speculating this had a look at the topography here? Landing a "Triple 7" here? Frankly, I don't believe this to be possible.

Rgds

 

Well, you have more reasonable news sources than I do.

My TV says, via various "news" outlets, they absolutely KNOW THE FOLLOWING FACTS FOR CERTAIN.
The transponder and ACARS were intentionally turned off.
The plane definitely turned left and it did so based on commends entered into the Flight Management Computer by a knowledgeable person, most likely a pilot.
This turn was executed 12 minutes before the last radio conversation.
The plane climbed to 45000 feet and then made a VERY rapid decent to the mid 20s.
The plane was detected on Malaysian military heading over the Malacca Straits.
The co-pilot made the last radio transmission so that means he had control over the aircraft.

Of course NONE of this is known for certain, some of it is very unlikely, and some of it is physically impossible. That doesn't stop the media though.

 

I have no opinion on how a search should be conducted, being no pilot and no searcher.
But, as alluded, the press here is underlining everyday that the reluctance of the Malaysian Airlines, and Malaysian officials, to give an actual adequate sequence of information has been detrimental to the efficiency of researches since day One.
By the way, the french BEA has despatched three experts to Malaysia, one of them beeing the one that worked on the report of the Air France AF447 crash of 2009.

Rgds

 

You are a wise man, sir.

No F8 driver has ever told a lie or even exaggerated a war story. Just ask any bar-fly.

 

That plane you flew is simply an icon...
(there are a dozen surviving from the 42 we bought, and two, unfortunately static, at the Le Bourget Museum)

Rgds

 

A new, further possibility? I translated only the paragraph with the new elements.
P.S: “Le Monde” is no tabloïd…

More than eleven days after its disappearance, and while researches are now extended over an area larger than Australia, no one knows yet exactly what happened to Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 Malaysia Airlines.

A new possible path has emerged today, Wednesday, March 19, after Thailand said it had spotted on its radar data an "unidentified aircraft" changing direction several times at the same exact moment that flight MH370 lost contact with air traffic control.
On March 8th, Radars located in the south of the country showed "at 0 h 28, six minutes after the disappearance of flight MH370, an unidentified aircraft flying in a southwesterly direction," the opposite of the intended direction of the Boeing 777 flying the Kuala Lumpur-Beijing connection, said an Thailand Air Force spokesman.
The signal, which "was not very strong and kept interrupting", then disappeared; but he adds, "we cannot confirm that the aircraft so detected was MH370."

Disparition du vol MH370 : un « appareil non identifié » repéré par la Thaïlande

 

They're saying the same here in the U.S. That's the reason this thread is so popular in a forum that gets very little attention. The news media knows what it's doing.

 

finally a sensible explanation....let me know your thoughts.

A Startlingly Simple Theory About the Missing Malaysia Airlines Jet | Autopia | Wired.com

 

The short answer: No they would have no knowledge of it because it utilizes the same Pegasus system FMS as the 767. There is no ACARS uplink of a pilot entered keystroke. This is why I don't believe any of this BS because they keep coming up with scenarios like this that just don't pass the smell test.

 

I saw a headline on CNN but the TV did not have Volume.(gym area).
Did a plane just go missing from Israel???
OR
Is Israel tightening security because of the missing Malaysian flight??

Can someone confirm or deny that story.

 

heres one,could this plane be sitting in a chinese hanger?,if it turned left/west,do we know this because our[usa] spy sats saw this?,or could it be sitting on the ground in malaysia?,,and no im not a pilot,but i stayed at a motel 6 last night

 

Spy sats didn't see anything. They have better things to do than watch the thousands of commercial airplanes criss crossing the globe.

 

They're on heightened alert since the plane went missing.

 

A few sites now reporting that the pilot had previously deleted all files on the simulator...and we keep going.

 

Maybe he was watching porn...didn't want the wife to find it while he was gone.

 

Addressed a couple pages back. Do a search.

 

As a supporter of the opposition in Malaysia, the government certainly has every incentive to throw the Captain under the bus, and disclose every damaging thing they can find about him. Regardless of whether or not he did anything wrong-- maybe especially if he didn't do anything wrong.

That said, I still think he was involved-- this would have required someone of his skill to pull it off.

 

Repost.

See reply #391.

 

Intercepting another airplane when you don't have any significant performance advantage is not easy to do-- I'm sure Mozella can speak to that. In this case, neither pilot had any military training, which makes it even less likely.

 

If I can find the video we use here at work for QA/FAA training on youtube I'll post it. Fire can travel scary fast through the innards of an aircraft and a single chafed wire can be all it takes. Usually by the time its apparent to the crew or whomever its pretty well rooted.


Here's an inflight fire that has a few similarities to this case. Swissair Flight 111 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Perhaps if there was a fire it knocked out communications & ACARS first and conditions rapidly decreased incapacitating everyone on board, but not the systems to keep in in flight? Swissair Flight 111 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

OK, I haven't followed this thread much, so excuse me if I'm repeating what's already been said.

As far as the pilots pre programming the FMS for a course change. It is very possible this is known as fact. My thoughts. Via the ACARS, position reports are made automatically to the company. The postition report includes: Current positon, Altitude, Next Position with ETA, and then Next Ensuing positon. So, if the change to the route was made, and a waypoint was crossed 2 waypoints before the change, it would show up if the ACARS was still active. And it doesn't matter the distance between the above waypoints.

So it's very possible they pre programmed the FMS for the new route. Then flew along the current route. Just before reaching the change (new route), they pulled the transponder CB and ACARS CB, essentially making themselves invisible to ATC radar. But their new route (maybe just 1 waypoint, possibly 2) would have been sent already via ACARS when crossing the last waypoint.

I also read somewhere that the plane went up to 45,000 ft. While possibly above the max altitude for their weight, this would have easily been done. Sadly, I can only think of one reason to do this. It involves depressurizing and the passengers. Hopefully this isn't the case.

Anyways, just my thoughts without really watching much TV.

 

Are you saying that investigators are seeing what their programmed route is, but not necessarily the route they flew?

Also, for the altitude thing, several people have mentioned that depending on conditions the radar altitude reading may not have been accurate so that cannot really be trusted.

 

Nothing beamed from the cockpit of that airplane after contact was lost can be trusted. Hell, most of what was beamed before contact was lost cannot be trusted.

 

In a position report, they can see: Current positon, and next 2 planned positions.

So it's possible they (someone in the cockpit) could have inputted a route change. If a waypoint was crossed within 2 waypoints of that change, it would include the change. When a say it includes the change, it just includes the new waypoint. Not the whole new route.

So investigators could have 1 or maybe 2 waypoints that are not on the original route.

I'm guessing whoever was in the cockpit (even if it was the flight crew) wouldn't have thought of this.

Sorta like this: Your the guy in the cockpit taking over the flight. You input your new route. Shortly before getting to your big change, you disable the transponder and ACARS so ATC can't see you. Off you go. No one knows.