The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

The investigation into the lost Malaysian Airlines 777 just keeps getting more interesting.  Curious what other’s theories are.  I’m thinking it landed somewhere since there is no sign of wreckage and none of the emergency beacons have activated.  Why would a rogue crew fly a plane off course for hours only to intentionally ditch it into the ocean, that wouldn’t accomplish any means.  If it were an act of terrorism, some group would have taken credit for it by now. 

For that matter, if they did land somewhere, what has become of the passengers? 

Quite a mystery.

Discuss.

My first thought after hearing that none of the distress/crash beacons had been activated was where could it have been flown to relatively undetected, and I thought the Maldives was kind of ideal. To far north to be picked up by Diego Garcia, and to far south for India. The northern track especially over land just seem too difficult too many civilian and military radar points, and south east towards Australia and New Zealand if they got within 200 miles of land would be picked up on radar.

But not hearing, as we've been told, that no one has claimed responsibility, and no other evidence has been released as to a possible end game. If it went down in the Indian Ocean, who knows when it might be found.

This is what I can't get my head around.  The fact that the flight simulator was found wiped clean in the pilot's home has me also believing that they are trying to land somewhere else.

Makes you wonder what he was practicing on the simulator. Anyone can build one like he had and simulator software has been available for years for home use, but it's what was erased that's the red flag, but could be nothing as well.

As for the rogue crew, if it was steal the plane for future use to me would imply a larger number of people, and if that's the case, where are the passengers?

As for flying for hours and no contact, (text, email) shut of the onboard communications for passengers, there are no cell towers over water, and other than the speculation of it flying to 45,000ft and then back down to 23,000ft, most of the maneuvers and flight over water at night, no one in the cabin would know of the course change.

BS

I am a pilot (expired paper though) and a former flightsimmer.  Just because there are 'deleted files' on the simulator (I've not heard the term 'wiped clean') doesn't mean anything.  News outlets are jumping to conclusions on this.

That being said, Malaysian authorities are not being very forthcoming..obviously.

News media aren't helping matters by speculating.  It muddies the waters.  What we know for sure:

Last ACARS message was sent about 14 minutes before the transponder was turned off...this is a message from the cockpit (usually coded via text) that the airline receives.  Typically maintenance info (fuel burn rate, alt, etc)

Malaysian military radar picked the aircraft up about 45 minutes after the transponder was deactivated (primary return only).

About 5.5 hours later, a satellite received a ping from the aircraft, but only one ping.  Without two other satellites receiving this, there is no way to accurately pinpoint where it was.

And I'll take my time to say this much...CNN has found as annoying, or even more, annoying of a correspondent than Piers Morgan.  Richard Quest takes the cake there.

And CNN anchors really need to do some of their own research before spouting off some of the silliness I've heard over the last 10 days.

Fascinating to me. As a non pilot type I am surprised at how easy it could be rendered invisible or at least plausibly rendered invisible. This is going to make a great movie with multiple possible endings. Right now its just a reminder how dedicated humans can make technology look weak.

Very valid point, nothing illegal about having a simulator, and who knows, the deleted files could be aircraft he doesn't want to fly, or any number of innocuous items.


I think they were never prepared for such an event.


These seem to be the only absolutes at this time. Everything else is speculation, guesstimation.


This is the one that has me curious, although we have not heard any of the ATC (civilian or military) recordings of conversations, did either of them challenge an unidentified aircraft?


Yes all they got was the system polling all of the aircraft the cover, and all the got was the serial/ ID number for that aircraft, which if it works like systems I'm familiar with, you can't disable that ID, as it is separate from the system sending the data. It's also similar to the way a pike pass works.


Richard Quest now reminds me of what would be an obnoxious character in a Monty Python skit, and the news anchors have no idea about the questions they ask.

I’m trying to think of any pilot-instigated hijacking of a commercial airliner, and I don’t recall ever reading of one.  One more thing we’d not thought of.  Who ever thought someone would take over four commercial aircraft with the intention of flying them into buildings either?

There was a commercial airliner off the northeast coast that suddenly dived into the Atlantic a few years back. They suspected the pilot committed suicide so in effect he hijacked the plane for personal reasons.

I wonder if one of the countries this plane flew over shot it down and is trying desperately to cover their tracks? If it flew over their country and they didn't shoot it down or escort it, they have some 'splainin to do.

http://blog.al.com/wire/2014/03/pilot_suicide_blamed_for_8_us.html (http://blog.al.com/wire/2014/03/pilot_suicide_blamed_for_8_us.html)

I guess you could call them "technically" hi-jacked.

As for 9/11, I don't know of any rational person that would think someone would turn a large commercial jet into a cruise missile before that day. Although on a smaller scale, Japanese Kamikaze pilots sort of come to mind.

The most damning that I have heard is that the course change was programed in before the ACARS was turned off (would the pilot not have known ACARS records this change?) and long before the plane's transponder was turned off and the plane disappeared. This really tosses out the idea of any kind of catastrophic problem. This, whatever it is, was planned.

The transponder that was still sending was the engine to Boeing and not the plane's transponder to the Airline. Maybe the pilot or whoever didn't know about the engine transponder or had no access to it. On NPR they interviewed other 777 pilots and they said they had no idea how to turn off ACARS or the transponder short of figuring out which fuses to pull.

A group in China did take credit for it, but it was shrugged off:
http://www.ibtimes.com/obscure-group-northwestern-china-chinese-martyrs-brigade-claims-responsibility-missing-malaysia

I was hopeful the day after, when Rolls-Royce announced it turned over engine telemetry to investigators.  Apparently they weren't supposed to have announced that, but it was the first clue that the jet remained airborne much longer than initially reported.

Im on the fence between failed hijacking, or the crew becoming incapacitated and the automation taking over.

Why is no one suggesting alien abduction?

Just wait till I say I told you so.

Airport '77

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0q09eZ1s_Q (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0q09eZ1s_Q)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075648/synopsis?ref_=ttpl_pl_syn (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075648/synopsis?ref_=ttpl_pl_syn)

I thought this article raises some interesting points about what might have happened - and that sometimes the simple explanation is not the one we want to believe.

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/

Can't say that doesn't make sufficient arguments.  I think the news media wants the most dramatic resolution.  In this case, as this article notes, it may be one of the most simple and non-conspiratorial that is the correct one.

That is a real possibility. They could have had a fire and lose some of the systems, and not lose autopilot, they tried to turn to make and emergency landing using the autopilot while trying to do damage control, lost conscious, the electrical fire caused a cabin decompression, and everyone out cold in 20 minutes and then you have a ghost plane that will fly until it runs out of fuel.

Kinda like the Payne Stewart situation.  Except in that case, radar coverage was heavy and I don't remember reading that the transponder was off.

Yes, similar to his crash. Some of the things I have been reading and hearing is that the emergency O2 supply is only good for about 20 to 30 minutes, and is supposed to be used as a stop gap until the plane can get to 10,000 feet. At 35,000 feet, as I understand it, the time from conscious to unconscious is about two minutes. So just supposing, you could have several system failures but not a complete failure and this could happen. Nobody ever thought you could have a dual engine failure on takeoff from bird strikes, and successfully land the plane in the Hudson intact, and only have one person with a major injury.

And yes, Stewart's plane was covered along it's complete path, whereas 370 was out over water, and land based radar only reaches out ~150 miles.

I'm really beginning to think the thing is in the water, not where they were originally searching, and with twelve now thirteen days of wind and ocean currents, what ever is on the surface is not even close to where it crashed.

(http://robbieabed.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/cat-hiding-in-paper-bag.jpg)

With the news from Australia, if it's debris from the plane, the incident/fire on board, and the ghost flight is starting to sound more plausible. If what they found about 1500 miles off the west coast, would theoretically put it near 180 degrees from it's last position. Could be they used the autopilot to turn the plane 180 to head back to Kuala, but became incapacitated, and the plane flew south until it ran out of fuel.

Just a theory.

Not a bad theory either.  I fear it might wind up like AF577..taking two years (or more) to find the wreckage.  The way some of the aviation experts are talking, if the piece they found IS from the aircraft, the size of it would roughly match the tail cone.  That could destroy the 'ghost flight' theory because that would indicate they tried to ditch.  Still far too early however.

Saw that after I posted. Was just watching CNN and they were talking about the ocean currents in that area, and it's kind of like the "trash zone" in the Pacific, but the currents are not as strong and most of the trash is small plastics and such, but reading between the lines, the counter clockwise rotation could draw in material from north of the area, basically a giant eddy pool.

I will say this, out of all the news from that area, if I was to take stock in what a gov't was saying, it would be the Aussies or the Kiwi's before anybody else, other than our own that is.

Hopefully if it is debris it will lead them to the flight recorders as well as more of the wreckage to help with the families. I have experienced some things in life losing family members, but just can't imagine what they are going through.

Just an UWAG (unscientific wild a$$ guess) I drew a line using Google Earth using nautical miles from an approximate point of it's last known location, that line runs from that point, across Kuala Lumpur to the approximate point of the debris that they are looking at, and it comes out to approximately 3100 nautical miles. That would put it at approximately the fuel load to go from Kuala to Beijing. If it ran out of fuel at 35,000 feet, ghost flight scenario, it would accelerate as it was descending and could have broken up before it hit the water.

As I said, it seems plausible, more so than my thought of it landing in the Maldives as a stolen aircraft to be used for something else.

(Not an expert, and I haven't stayed in a Holiday Inn Express since November)

You hide it by parking it behind one of those Antonov AN-225 planes....

https://www.google.com/search?q=biggest+russian+airplane&client=firefox-a&hs=9LB&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=sb&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=Sv_HU_ZCgrbIBO_6grgK&ved=0CB4QsAQ&biw=1411&bih=740

Somebody has something against Malaysia!!  Even though they are Muslim, they haven't given anyone much trouble, comparatively, so what is the deal with all this stuff....?

I think it's a tragic coincidence that it was a Malaysian airliner, interesting note and I will try to find a link for it, it is reported that back in April the FAA announced that US carriers are prohibited from flying over that airspace because of the ongoing conflict in the region.


http://www.nbaa.org/ops/intl/eur/20140501-faa-issues-special-federal-aviation-regulation-prohibiting-united-states-flights-in-airspace-over-crimea.php (http://www.nbaa.org/ops/intl/eur/20140501-faa-issues-special-federal-aviation-regulation-prohibiting-united-states-flights-in-airspace-over-crimea.php)

Hide the triple 7 at the bottom of the sea.

That's pretty cold.

At the depth in that area, very cold!!