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

very informative --- thanks Lou !

What time of day is that FlightRadar snap taken ?? Looks like a busy area......more so than I would have thought assuming those are all commercial aircraft and not a lot of freighters in the mix.

 

Yeah, a lot of traffic. I took it about 2 hours ago. It always amazes me how many aircraft are in the air at once. It's even busier now.

 

Wow less than 3000km from my city, this is getting so strange.

We've got a US P-8 here at least.

 

If this is the plane, its highly unlikely to be terrorism. It looks like the pilots had a problem, turned the plane, and lost control either by fire or smoke or a lack of oxygen.

Then the plane just continued until it ran out of fuel.

There's no reason why you would hijack a plane and not just crash it for maximum effect or use the passengers as hostages. Having it go down in the middle of the ocean isn't a great pay off. The only other way is they took control and were just complete idiots in flying and put in the wrong course. Of course, there is also the possibility of sabotage of the electrical system or computers.

So many talking heads on TV are going to have egg on their faces when this plane is found.

How sad and terrifying for the people on board if they knew their fate for the last 5 hours waiting for the plane to crash in the sea in the middle of the night. Some may have even survived after the crash for a few minutes or hours.

The plane, even without the autopilot on, could have been stable enough in flight to travel that distance and then fall into the sea far beyond radar contact.

 

Finding debris is one thing. Finding the plane is another. Finding the cause is yet another step.

My point? It'll be awhile, but I suspect a lot of people including Fchatters will have egg on their faces based on all the continued speculation of what happened. This includes myself as well.

Based on where the debris was found, the closest destination in the vicinity was Amsterdam island, an uninhibited island (and no where to really land safely). Next closest place was significantly farther and in even colder waters close to Antarctica.

 

I have a feeling when we find the wreck and black boxes, we are going to discover a real nightmare for the crew and passengers.

A real nightmare.

 

I can't imagine which would be worse --- being on a plane that cannot be controlled and is just sailing blindly out to the middle of Indian Ocean <or> being on a plane that is being purposely flown to the same end.

I'm not a religious person, but I pray (for lack of a better word) that all of the innocents on board were unconscious long before their protracted fate played out

 

Possible object
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If those pieces of wreckage are indeed from MH370; and if the black boxes are indeed found...
Reports are that visibility on zone is very bad; depth of the ocean at this place is "about 4000m". Planes should be on zone in about 2 to 3 hours from now.

Rgds

 

Aussie press conference

http://www.amsa.gov.au/media/incidents/mh370/day3-2014-03-20/20032014_AMSA_MH370_Press_Conference.mp4

 

Thank you for the updates everyone. So has it been confirmed as crashed? Sigh...i was really hoping for a hijack situation, and everyone was safe. That they just went into hiding.

Whatever said and done, it's a good call for the Malaysian Government. It's a truly wake up call, and i hope they will pull their socks up after this, and be more competent.

 

No, still no confirmation yet; what we know is that two large pieces of wreckage has been spotted by a satellite and that they "may be from the MH 370 Boeing 777".
They had not be found yet, and therefore not identified. An Australian P3 Orion seems to be already on zone and searching, the next scheduled planes to arrive can be seen on the fifth illustration, lower right:

Possible wreckage spotted in search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, RAAF plane on its way to identify objects | News.com.au

 

Weather is lousy there. May need a ship to confirm. Could take a couple of days.

 

Yep; exactly what they were saying already a few hours ago: visibility is bad.

 

. FYI.
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A Norwegian cargo ship has reached the area a few minutes ago:

Missing Malaysian plane search LIVE: Norwegian ship reaches area where possible plane debris spotted : Asia, News - India Today

 

And the first RAAF P-3 Orion to have reached the wreckage site has already turned back to base, after having searched the area for sometime, without seeing anything; meteo conditions are bad, visibility is very poor, the night is falling.

Rgds

 

Interesting stuff. We shall see. Might take a while.

 

If the P-3's are able to locate the debris..the P-3 will be able to ascertain whether its aircraft debris, shipping container, etc or something else by the magnetic anomaly detector on board and other equipment...I spent a few thousand hours as an IFT in a P-3 squadron years ago..
Due to the remoteness of the site though time on station is limited..even with 2 engines feathered..

 

Could it have been a "test" by hijackers to see how long a plane of that size could evade detection?

With such rough seas and depth of the ocean at the location of the possible wreckage, how likely is it that the black boxes can be recovered?

 

What would be the point of such a test? Hijackers want visibility.

Miracles do happen, but if there is no signal and no early discovery of an intact tail section, I think it will be virtually impossible for the black boxes to be found.

 

Latest news,

So far four aircraft, and and up to seven ships have failed to locate the debris detected in those satellite images, according to the Australia Government.
A statement from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority confirmed that the search operation has finished for today and will resume again on Friday. No sightings were reported."


MH370: no sightings of possible plane debris - live updates | World news | theguardian.com

 

I don't think it was terrorism, but a pilot suicide is still the most likely. You don't re-program the FMS when you are having major technical problems, shut off ACARS and the transponder, and then call a sign off with no hint of a problem..............My guess is the FO was involved as it was his voice. Either that or he was being held at gunpoint.

 

A P-3 found the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior after other locating attempts by other means failed.

 

If the debris photo was taken approx 4 days ago and now they are having difficulties finding the items, why don't they just take better satellite pics and review those?
Maybe its too over cast?