Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

[philipat]

"Plenty of people in Xinjiang could pass for a european some southern - some northern"


Um, not really. Also, an Italian travelling ex-KUL to PEK would require a Visa and with a cancelled Passport and a Chinese face, the chances of doing that might be slim??

[Richard W]

BUT, a Western Chinese dissident doesn't look much like an Italian, even to a totally clueless Official?
Modern Uighurs also descend from Iranian peoples. I'm pretty sure some can pass for Italian.

[Global Warrior]

Originally Posted by stanley11
...major foul up in the authorities to flag out the passport
Whether this will have any bearing on the events or not (AND if the information proves to be true), I agree with the comment above, that while immigration officers at KLIA are not the brightest, any non-roundeye holding an Italian passport with an Italian sounding name would surely trigger a second look - just as if I tried to board a plane with a Chinese passport and a Chinese sounding name. Whether the passport would have been flagged as stolen and invalid depends on the Italian authorites circulating the information, then the Malaysian authorities entering that information into their immigration system. As we know, the bureaucracies of neither fine lands are known for their speed and efficiency...

Moreover Italian passport holders need a valid visa to enter China, so there had to be (a real or forged) visa sticker in that passport for whoever was using that passport to be permitted t board. Now that would indicate quite a degree of determination and preparation.

There is possibly, a very simple explanation.... Check in with stolen passport (part of a group, milling around etc etc..... Go through immigration with real one?

[Interested Lay Bloke]

A couple of other links - stories appearing. No idea of authenticity so caveat emptor! I do not endorse either link.

Malaysia Airlines Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah of MH370 is an experienced pilot. He set up this 777 simulator. - Sharelor (http://www.sharelor.net/1/post/2014/03/malaysian-airlines-captainzaharie-ahmad-shah-of-mh370-is-an-experienced-pilot-here-is-a-flight-simulator-that-he-set-up.html)

Who is Passenger 84 on MH370 and why is his/her name blurred out? [View Uncensored Image] - Sharelor (http://www.sharelor.net/1/post/2014/03/who-is-passenger-84-on-mh370-and-why-is-hisher-name-blurred-out-view-uncensored-image.html)

[philipat]

"There is possibly, a very simple explanation.... Check in with stolen passport (part of a group, milling around etc etc..... Go through immigration with real one? "


There is this thing called a Boarding Card??

[Deaf]

Racial background in Xinjiang is extremely mixed. Plenty of roundeyes In a city like Urumchi in 94 maybe 5% could pass for an italian and there were also a few with blond hair/blue eyes

[fitliker]

Chinese passenger jet carrying 220 people in near miss with North Korean missile | South China Morning Post (http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1441024/chinese-passenger-jet-carrying-220-people-near-miss-north-korean-missile)




Coincidence ?

[Interested Lay Bloke]

Web link - (original post edited to remove link to passenger manifest) - caveat emptor as always and not endorsed by me!


Malaysia Airlines Captain*Zaharie Ahmad Shah of MH370 is an experienced pilot. He set up this 777 simulator. - Sharelor (http://www.sharelor.net/1/post/2014/03/malaysian-airlines-captainzaharie-ahmad-shah-of-mh370-is-an-experienced-pilot-here-is-a-flight-simulator-that-he-set-up.html)

[jbr76]

After what happened in a Beijing Railway Station last week, I'm sure there is a lot of interest in option 2.

Try Kunming Station, Yunnan Province. Thousands of miles away from Beijing.

[Propolis]

According to Austrian Foreign Ministry the Austrian on the manifest is well and in Austria. His passport had been reported stolen 2 years ago in Thailand. This has been reported by APA news agency in Austria.
http://www.apa.at/News/6217359958/boeing-mit-239-passagieren-vor-vietnam-verschollen.html

[Jiving]

There is no reason he should be an Uighur, the 9-11 hijackers came from four countries and shoe-bomber Richard Reid held a British passport. Indeed it has been suggested that Islamist terrorists are now actively seeking Caucasian converts for tasks where being perceived as a Westerner is advantageous.

[philipat]

@Deaf


I think this is a side track. We can't speculate as to what happened yet. Obviously something highly unusual BUT this lost Italian Passport stuff is pretty stupid to be honest. Western Governments cancel Passports immediately when lost and when issuing a new Passport. That would certainly be the case for an Italian who lost his Passport in Thailand and who needed a new Passport.
Also, an Italian travelling to China would need a Visa from a Chinese Mission, which would, first, verify the Passport and, second, LOOK AT THE APPLICANT!!


Can we shut down this blind alley??

[Squawk_ident]

Italian citizens like others European ones do not need a visa to transit at PEK PVG or CAN, if you have a connecting flight within 24? hours. Moreover you can now get a short stay visa at some major airports in PRC upon arrival in some cases but better recheck this before leaving...

[mickjoebill]

philipat "There is possibly, a very simple explanation.... Check in with stolen passport (part of a group, milling around etc etc..... Go through immigration with real one? "


There is this thing called a Boarding Card??


Is the passenger list that has been published a list of passengers who booked a flight or is it a manifest of passengers who boarded the flight?

Was there cargo or passengers on board from an earlier flight?
Where did it travel from on its previous sector and how long was it on the ground at KL?

[philipat]

@fitliker (http://www.pprune.org/members/235775-fitliker)


The South China sea is a long way from North Korea!!

[HeathrowAirport]

Tonights MAS370 - Same/Similar routing - different step climbs though.

PIBOS R208 IKUKO M076F290 R208 IGARI M765 BITOD N0480F330 L637 TSN N0490F350 W1 BMT W12 PCA G221 BUNTA N0480F350 A1 IKELA N0480F350 P901 IDOSI N0480F390 DCT CH DCT BEKOL K0890S1160 A461 YIN K0890S1190 A461

http://i60.tinypic.com/5a2qkz.jpg

[Pucka]

Of course, we have to work around subjective event at the moment but having been on that airway last week, there is an inordinate amount of traffic on and around the airway. That's one reason why Sanya ask for offsets. I have had TCAS events with no altitude info and one at night that may have been a drone. The yanks meander with impunity to the south of Hainan so it might be anything. A sig structural or bomb..but it must have been quick since no ELT or EPIRB, even from the recorders??
The Learmount thingy with AF is :mad: the triple is completely different and as a John Deere, will not suck you into a spurious control law disparity situation, it's a belt and braces device compared to the Bus.

[Capvermell]

I'm sure a Chinese visa official would know the difference between an Italian and a ChineseSo are you really trying to argue that almost uniquely among EU member states (and especially Western EU member states) that Italy has no citizens at all who hold its passports who are of Chinese Ethnic Origin???

The question you should really be asking is whether the security systems at the airport of boarding were sufficiently sophisticated that the passport used was scanned and if it was scanned then why didn't an immediate "Passport Cancelled, Stop and Detain Holder" message flash up on the immigration officer's screen? And if a big airport in Malaysia does not have any such automated systems that can scan foreign passports and make its immigration officers immediately aware of forged or cancelled documents then why not?

Having said that I have no idea at all if even a British Passport scanned at London Heathrow or another major UK airport brings up an image on the immigration officer's screen of the original bearer photo submitted to the UK Passport Authority with the passport application in case the actual physical document has subsequently had its photo amended. Even if such electronic data interchange and cross readable passport systems do now exist (post 9/11) between all major Western EU countries and say the USA and Canada I highly doubt that such advanced information interchange yet exists between EU member states and airports in Malaysia..............

Also lastly immigration checks are usually far more sophisticated inbound at an airport than outbound. For instance at London Gatwick the outbound check in the South Terminal now consists only of an automated boarding pass gate and automated photography of the passenger (who knows whether that runs any computer logic of that image against the passport image that is actually on file - I doubt it as it also works for overseas passport holders from all over the world). Although the outbound airline's staff do carry out perfunctory checks of the ticket buyer name against the passport at check in and/or the boarding gate I very much doubt that they have had any serious training in comparing real passenger faces against murky and very small passport photos. To be honest I sometimes also wonder how much training even inbound UKBA immigration officers have had in such matters and/or how much good it has done.

[Global Warrior]

There is possibly, a very simple explanation.... Check in with stolen passport (part of a group, milling around etc etc..... Go through immigration with real one?

There is a thing called a boarding card

I know but i don't think I've ever been asked by immigration to show them my boarding card.. They have only ever been interested in the fact that i have documents and i haven't overstayed and that I'm not wanted for a crime.....But i haven't travelled a lot in Far East.

[Global Warrior]

After what happened in a Beijing Railway Station last week, I'm sure there is a lot of interest in option 2.

Try Kunming Station, Yunnan Province. Thousands of miles away from Beijing.

Thanks.... i was told about it rather than reading/hearing about it :ugh:

[philipat]

"Is the passenger list that has been published a list of passengers who booked a flight or is it a manifest of passengers who boarded the flight?"


At KUL every departing passenger, quite rightly, must produce a Passport AND BOARDING CARD before boarding a flight. Also, at Check-In, a Visa for the destination country is required. IF an Italian travelling to PEK without a Visa is checked-in, then there MUST have been evidence in an eticket or otherwise, that a connection to be made within 24 hours was made. So that should not be too difficult to trace??

[andrasz]

... the photograph on the passport used needs not be the original one...

The photo together with name and biographic details are chemically etched into the main page of all EU passports these days, they are extremely difficult to forge without having access to the actual production machinery (hence EU replacement passports are not issued by embassies any more, they have to be produced at a secure facility in he home country). I would rather assume that whoever was doing this was playing on the fact that to Asians all roundeyes look the same, just like in Europe I doubt that many immigration officiers would be able to tell apart two Asians with a broadly similar face based on a small passport photo possibly taken 6-8 years earlier.

[Flying.Penguin]

The reports which suggest multiple stolen passports were used to board this flight are rather concerning. I’m not going to speculate as that helps nobody but I really hope the stolen Austrian and Italian passports on board are pure coincidence.

[Eastwest Loco]

Sorry WWW but I take exception to publishing a manifest copy in a public forum when maybe all the relatives of those apparently lost may not have been advised.

It is a very pertinent point you make but I get flashbacks to PA103 when I managed to pick a hole in the TIAS system and could pull the passenger list.

Such things are best kept to ourselves.

[HeathrowAirport]

http://i60.tinypic.com/5a2qkz.jpg

Fuel for that routing in a 772 is about 50-60,000kgs at least. Roughly 8 hours.

[Propolis]

i do not believe that those stolen IDs are accident relevant at all but having 2 stolen Passports used for checkin on 1 aircraft does not reassure me on security on Malaysian airports.

[daikilo]

Regarding the terrorist theory, whether or not the passport was false/stolen, it is not obvious how such a person could have created an explosion large enough to have knocked out all power simultaneously. That did not happen at Lockerbie, and the falling elements were large enough to have radar traces.

However, the instantaneous break-up and power-loss did happen with the Air Italy DC-9, thought to be a missile explosion close to or inside the airframe. Again, detailed examination of radar traces helped the theorists to focus in.

[Ulight]

Sorry WWW but I take exception to publishing a manifest copy in a public forum when maybe all the relatives of those apparently lost may not have been advised.

It is a very pertinent point you make but I get flashbacks to PA103 when I managed to pick a hole in the TIAS system and could pull the passenger list.

Such things are best kept to ourselves.



Malaysian Airlines published the manifest a while ago - http://www.malaysiaairlines.com/content/dam/mas/master/en/pdf/Malaysia%20Airlines%20Flight%20MH%20370%20Passenger%20Manife st.pdf

[grimmrad]

Italian passenger

(My quotes never work). If he says he wasn't on the plane but the manifest lists him and he reports his passport stolen - than who was on the plane using his name? And why was it not noticed that this pp was stolen, unless he did not report it which is unlikely. Can that be missed on check in or pass control in KL? Very sad indeed.

[Blacksheep]

Son in Law is British born of HK parents. Refused Chinese entry because he "looked like a Tibetan".

[jbr76]

Also, an Italian travelling to China would need a Visa from a Chinese Mission, which would, first, verify the Passport and, second, LOOK AT THE APPLICANT!!


Can we shut down this blind alley??

You don't need a visa to enter PRC if you are a transit passenger with an on-going ticket to another country. You are allowed 72hours stay in the country with no visa.

You should really educate yourself on the immigration laws of the country concerned before criticizing other peoples posts.

[Bridge Builder]

Sorry if this has already been posted.
From flightradar24 - showing altitude zero (ie in the sea).

The position of the 777 is:

LAT: 6.68
LONG: 103.46

Why the search parties didn't just check on this website hours ago God only knows.

[philipat]

@LHR


That's a LONG way round. Amber 1??

[SOPS]

So we have two stolen passports on the same flight? That does not sound good.

[Ivanbogus]

Stop focusing on this passport issue ! People fly everyday all around the world with stolen passports. The aircraft has gone down for whatever reason, i highly doubt it has anything to do with stolen passports.

[HeathrowAirport]

@philipat - amber/yellow is Great Circle Route. In red is the planned routing for this daily/regular route.

[henra]

The Learmount thingy with AF is bollox..the triple is completely different and as a John Deere, will not suck you into a spurious control law disparity situation, it's a belt and braces device compared to the Bus.


I would not jump to any conclusions or rather exclusions.
In the case of Adam Air 574 it didn't require any Control Law disparity (whatever that means) to achieve the same outcome.
The 777 might not be prone to the certain kind of upset experienced on AF447 but that doesn't mean it can't be put into an upset in a different way (possibly even one which might not happen in a 'Bus- the world is not always as simple and black/white as some obviously would like it to be).
Let's wait until we know a little bit more about what happened.
Heck we don't even know how large the wreckage path is, nor where it is.

[mickjoebill]

Reports that both passports were stolen from Thailand, so it is likely the two passengers had other things in common.

Criminality, illegal migration or terrorism?

[MPN11]

Statistical coincidence?
Were these unknowns trying to enter China for some other purpose there? And the aircraft loss was an unrelated coincidence?

I venture to suggest that the unfortunate promulgation of the manifest does indicate a scenario that has a higher probability than any other that comes to mind. Unless 2 completely unconnected false personae simultaneously tried to enter China on the same flight. Do your own calculations of probabilities.

[philipat]

IMHO, comparisons to AF are irrelevant. AF was flying through the ITCZ during bad weather. What relevance does that have to a 772 flying over the South China Sea in calm conditions? Can we remain focused here??

[MCDU2]

Or......keep taking your medication and wait for the accident reports. Then you will know what happened.

[philipat]

@LHR


It's been a long time, forgot the routes!! But aren't there shorter routes from KUL to PEK?? Over Vietnam and Cambodia??

[philipat]

As of now, it isn't obvious what accident reports you are referring to? We have a missing aircraft with no reports and a cut ACARS trail??


My Meds, off duty, amount to a 1982 Margaux, which seems to work fine, thanks.

[snowfalcon2]

Assuming the aircraft is located in a few days at most,

Any guesses on when we can expect the FDR and CVR to be retrieved? is the necessary equipment available in the area or will specialist vessels have to travel far?

I remember the ET409 accident off Beirut in waters of approximately the same depth, where it took slighly less than 2 weeks to find and retrieve the recorders.

[rachcollins]

I guess I could write off one stolen passport being used to board MH307 as a mere coincidence, but two stolen passports, both of which were stolen in Thailand, being used to board the same flight suggests to me something much more sinister may have taken place.


Both passports are from countries which have access to the visa waiver programme in PEK, providing they had tickets valid for travel from PEK within 72hrs they could board the flight without a visa.


There were flaws in many early European biometric passports which allowed access to the encrypted information stored on the chips very easily.


I know that the Italians upgraded their first series of biometric passports only 4 years after being introduced, which is amazingly fast for a country where simple systemic flaws often take decades to be rectified.


Providing the data on the chip correlates to the physical passport being presented to border officials, they will be far less likely to detect physical abnormalities caused by altering the passport itself.

[andrasz]

Passenger manifest now published and linked on the MAS website, so we may consider it official. For all its worth, the Italian and Austrian names are listed...

IF these reports of stolen passports are true (and for the time being no reason to doubt), it will be interesting to see where the information became lost. Malaysian immigration scans passports inbound/outbound, so we may safely assume that these were stolen was not entered into the system...

As for getting back on track, for the time being this seems to be the only scrap of information worth chewing on, though I agree it could be totally irrelevant.

[philipat]

OK, so you are insinuating that Pitos and the ITCZ are the issue here??

[cockpitvisit]

Sorry if this has already been posted.
From flightradar24 - showing altitude zero (ie in the sea).

flightradar24 often briefly reports the altitude as zero when the radar contact is lost. This means nothing.

[virginblue]

Reports from a Chinese news website that US military at Utapao in Thailand picked up an emergency message from MH370 mentioning a disintegration of the fuselage. I would be very surprised if only a US military camp in Thailand was able to receive that message???

[Wannabe Flyer]

2 fake passports on same flight......i cannot imagine someone trying to migrate to china or even transit via china on a MAS flight via PEK

[bille1319]

Assuming wreckage is found, there are quite a few oil field construction type ships with deep water Robotic Vehicles in the S China Sea are which are capable of tying shoe laces at 1000m which could be called up. But as yet after an extensive day's searching both by air and sea search and rescue parties; mysteriously no debris has been sighted, not even a cushion or life jacket so no one knows for sure whether it has been hijacked to some where or vanished. I also note that Sky news stories about emergency beacon tranmissions have also fizzled out and oil slick sightings are perhaps another Red Herring.

[henra]

OK, so you are insinuating that Pitos and the ITCZ are the issue here??

No.
But apart from that (which is indeed unlikely) we don't know anything at all yet.
I did not make any reference to AF447 (I don't know to whom your post Re AF447 referred), just to Adam Air 574. And that didn't require ITCZ and iced pitots either.
The point I was trying to make is that LoC can happen in different ways and we cannot even exclude that at this point.
That was my reply to a post which insinuated that since it was a Triple Seven, any kind of LoC could be completely ruled out.
It can not.
Which doesn't mean at all it was the case. It simply means: we don't know yet.
Can we put this to rest now, please?

[mickjoebill]

I venture to suggest that the unfortunate promulgation of the manifest does indicate a scenario that has a higher probability than any other that comes to mind.

On the other hand, in previous acts of aviation terrorism were false or stolen identity documents used?

Surely there are better passports to steal if you want to enter china, than an Austrian and Italian one....?

If the pair were Chinese nationals whose real identities were on a watch list in China, then it would have been clever to choose to impersonate Europeans, even if risky, as their mission did not hinge on getting past immigration in China.

Mickjoebill

[Livesinafield]

Statistical coincidence?
Were these unknowns trying to enter China for some other purpose there? And the aircraft loss was an unrelated coincidence?

Surely there are better passports to steal if you want to enter china, than an Austrian and Italian one....?

[readywhenreaching]

found this special site on jacdec (http://www.jacdec.de/news/[email protected])
http://www.jacdec.de/fotos/news/2014/2014-03-08_9M-MRO_B772_MAS@off_Malaysia_SEARCHMAP.jpg (http://www.jacdec.de/news/[email protected])

Ocean depth seems less than in the AF 447 accident

[butzii]

After all the Assumptions why no ELT-Signal............

[Midland63]

Hope you don't mind a question from an SLF ...

With aircraft navigating by signals from satellites and sending out ACARS messages [sorry if that's the wrong terminology], almost in real time although at a cost if I read correctly, does the technology not exist such that it should be mandatory (as with carrying an ELT) that an a/c broadcasts at least its lat/long, alt, speed and heading every 10 seconds (or other short period)? That would seem to me to give the powers that be immediate notice that something had gone badly wrong and greatly narrow down the area of search for survivors or wreckage.

If someone could manage a sentence or two explaining why things aren't as simple as I imagine, I'd be grateful. Ta.

[andrasz]

...yet after an extensive day's searching ... mysteriously no debris has been sighted...

Nothing mysterious, neither surprising. Communications was lost in the small hours, with ETA at 6am with an extra 2 hours endurance. In the first hours after loss of comms, an increasingly frantic exchange of messages with neifhboring FIRs. It probably took a good 3-4 hours until the grim reality started to sink in, and somebody plucked the courage to wake the CEO. It probably took another couple of hours to establish with a reasonable degree of confidence where to start looking (there was quite a bit of confusion at the beginning on exactly how far into the flight was communications lost).

All the involved countries are fairly rigid hierarchical societies, which means information must be passed up the chain of command, then down again on the other end. This is complicated by the disputed territorial claims on various parts of he South China sea, which means that the SAR process must have had to been coordinated an an unusually high level. I doubt that the actual search would have been launched before late morning, midday, with 5-6 hours of daylight left. Probably there were no more than a couple of sorties flown over a vague target area before it became dark. Daylight tomorrow will hopeful bring results, as the search can get better organized tonight, with well defined areas and responsibilities for participating aircraft and vessels. Remember that the first AF447 wreckage was only spotted 2 days later. Then we had the ACARS messages to chew on, while now if they do exist (probably they do, as all Malaysian gov't and airline officials seem to accept the total loss as fact) they are not in the public domain.

[Ivanbogus]

The Gamma Normids meteor shower is now at it's peak. Some fragments can penetrate the atmosphere and theoretically hit an aircraft, very unlikely though, but one can imagine the result of a direct hit.

[QFBUSBOY]

Theories being looked at are terrorism, contaminated fuel and structural damage.

MAS are having their tech & maintenance engineers look and respond to these items for all future flights across all fleets prior to departure, with fuel samples being kept until completion of the sector.

[Bridge Builder]

Errr,,,it means the radar contact was lost in that position. I looked at the track and this is the exact position where radar contact was lost. Would be a good place to look, me thinks.

[LongTimeInCX]

I wonder if the fault lies with the airlines (Only ANA/JAL aircraft involved) training and maintenance procedures OR with Boeing who may have rushed to deliver aircraft because of previous delays?

So MickyMan you say we should not speculate?
Somewhat hypocritical when your post of 19 jan 2013 seems to be doing that.
This is after all a 'rumor network', so all theories should be welcome.
If you don't like to read them, then don't!

The sea state in the area this afternoon was quite benign, it begs the question why even some evidence of wreckage has not yet materialised.
It may transpire that the SAR effort was a little slow off the mark and possibly not even in the correct place in the few hours of daylight on this first day.
Tomorrow should at least confirm where.

[er340790]

The fact Boeing tweeted waiting for news reports suggests even they don't know what's entirely happened; suggestive of something happening very quickly with no trace.

Just out of curiosity, while we all wait for the facts, has there ever been a proven case of an aircraft being hit by a meteorite??? I mention this as, in the last 6 months flying in N. Canada, I have seen meteorites enter the atmosphere on 3 separate occasions.

[MrSnuggles]

mickjoebill

On the other hand, in previous acts of aviation terrorism were false or stolen identity documents used?
Yes, they were.

I mentioned the WTC-1993 bomber who did some trial/test runs using an Italian fake passport, who also had several other fake IDs laying around when police investigated. Air India bomber used a fake and/or incomplete name. Lockerbie bomber - I don't know what name was used for that, but it wasn't the man convicted.

Air France hijack in Algeria, the hijackers faked police IDs to gain access to the plane.

The new EU passports are hard to fake - much easier to steal and use, hoping for a sloppy bureaucracy to fail to nullify the passport ID number. Photos and person data is engraved into a special laminated paper, so IF you manage to get hold of such a passport AND it slips through the bureacracy I venture a guess that noone will suspect that the long-nose in front of them isn't the long-nose on the passport pic (which, btw, can be years old and very very very unflattering anyway).

[Hotel Tango]

Somewhat contradictary statement there SOPS. If it broke up into pieces midair I'd say there's even more likelyhood of debris floating on the ocean's surface.

If nothing has yet been found, maybe they're just not looking in the right place yet.

[Hogger60]

With aircraft navigating by signals from satellites and sending out ACARS messages [sorry if that's the wrong terminology], almost in real time although at a cost if I read correctly, does the technology not exist such that it should be mandatory (as with carrying an ELT) that an a/c broadcasts at least its lat/long, alt, speed and heading every 10 seconds (or other short period)? That would seem to me to give the powers that be immediate notice that something had gone badly wrong and greatly narrow down the area of search for survivors or wreckage

It is all about cost. Bean counters do a cost/benefit analysis, and come to the conclusion that crashes are so rare, the cost doesn't justify putting the equipment in the aircraft and paying for the satellite communications that would be needed. Sad, but very true.

[Simplythebeast]

Could somebody explain how contaminated fuel could result in the loss of an aircraft from cruise altitude with no comms?

[CaptainDrCook]

Some people here have suggested loss of control due to a stall. But surely, even at night time, with possibly no air speed info on the primary display, a stall (or even a spin) is recoverable from 35,000 feet.

A second point... given that this was on an IFR route, surely the wreckage can be found by flying the same route at 2000 ft, at 100kts?

If this was a squawk 7500 situation, surely secondary radar would have picked up the deviated flight path, even if all onboard comms were disabled?

[barrel_owl]

It sounds to me more like LAM470 than AF447. I just hope to to god it wasn't another deliberate accident by crew.

LAM470 vanished with no distress, squawk or maintenance messages sent and in the cruise in clear weather which is more similar to MAS370Except that LAM470 was tracked on radar after it started abruptly descending from 38,000 feet.

Not here apparently. So I can't see any similarity at the moment.

[scoobys]

dont worry you've got a completely unqualified 21 year old a few posts back telling us how much fuel they had on..

[barry lloyd]

PASSPORTS:

Stolen passports can be used by government agencies:

(if you can't bothered to read it all, just read para 2):

Assassination of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Mahmoud_al-Mabhouh)

I'm not suggesting that Mossad agents were on the flight, simply pointing out that lost passports can end up in the strangest places and be used for nefarious purposes.

[philipat]

Could somebody explain how contaminated fuel could result in the loss of an aircraft from cruise altitude with no comms?


Sure, put simply, it couldn't. Sleep well!!

[Ivanbogus]

Contaminated fuel doesn't make an airliner fall out of the sky, this is a case of a sudden catastrophic event !

[John Boeman]

Horrific..... The suddenness and the altitude of the occurrence...... It does remind me of China Airlines Flght 611.

[FIRESYSOK]

Based on the Vietnamese website photos, there is a large tract, perhaps 60x50nm roughly centered on the IGARI waypoint on M765 airway.

Perhaps the initial search area.

[andrasz]

... radar contact was lost ...

I doubt that it was really radar contact that was lost, at that point the aircraft was probably outside primary radar control. It was the transponder signal reporting position and flight parameters to ATC that was lost, but that does not necessarily mean that the aircraft is in distress. For all we know the aircraft could be anywhere between last known position and the limit of Vietnamese primary radar coverage area.

[Sop_Monkey]

My gut tells me this aircraft has had an instantaneous, catastrophic structural failure or in flight breakup. The similarities to PA103, AI, UTA, TWA and the list goes on are unerringly similar. Just leave the aviat, nav comm aside for a moment.

I hope and pray the poor soles on board didn't know too much about it. God we are lucky we only die once. May they rest in peace.

If there are any perpetrators, may they rot in hell.

[Simplythebeast]

My thoughts exactly so I womdered why QFBUSBOY had quoted that as a line of enquiry.

[Global Warrior]

A second point... given that this was on an IFR route, surely the wreckage can be found by flying the same route at 2000 ft, at 100kts?


i believe AF447 had turned 180 degrees by the time of impact

[mickjoebill]

On the other hand, in previous acts of aviation terrorism were false or stolen identity documents used?
.

Yes, they were

Ok, does it follow that statistically, those traveling on false passports in an aircraft that has crashed are likely to be involved in its demise?

[LegallyBlonde]

Ok, does it follow that statistically, those traveling on false passports in an aircraft that has crashed are likely to be involved in its demise?



I think you would want to have a high index of suspicion anyway. Two passports, both stolen in Thailand, end up on this flight. May be completely unrelated but in the age in which we live, I wouldn't bet on it.:ugh:

[silverstrata]

TWT

ASN and BEA say it was 9M-MRO that sustained wingtip damage at Shanghai-Pudong

ASN Aircraft accident 09-AUG-2012 Airbus A340-642 B-6050
ASN Aircraft accident 09-AUG-2012 Airbus A340-642 B-6050 (http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=147560)




Interesting.

If the wing-tip repair was not adequate, a poorly repaired wingtip that started to fail could cause an awful lot of wing-flutter.

I have only experienced wing-flutter on a glider, just for a few seconds (too much play on the aileron circuit), but it is nasty. It could easily pull an aircraft apart in minutes.

[RetiredTooEarly]

Some of the darker parts of the Net in areas of Defence are saying a call from the aircraft was picked up with something like .......... "Cabin disintegrating ..... Forced landing ........?

Just another innuendo to muddy the waters but does make a bit of sense ..... maybe, perhaps!

[Greenlights]

No ELT signal ???

[The Ancient Geek]

The wingtip repairs are unlikely to be a factor, the aircraft has been back in service for around a year, any problems would have shown up earlier.

We can probably also discount terrorists, someone would have claimed responsiblity by now.

[andrasz]

... saying a call from the aircraft was picked up ...
I think we can safely assume that all possible reports of communication from the aircraft would have been followed up by the officials within 12 hours of the plane gone missing. As everyone now accepts a catastrophic crash as the likeliest scenario, I see no incentive for anyone to withhold confirmation.

[Global Warrior]

My gut tells me this aircraft has had an instantaneous, catastrophic structural failure or in flight breakup. The similarities to PA103, AI, UTA, TWA and the list goes on are unerringly similar. Just leave the aviat, nav comm aside for a moment.


There was an accident a while ago. To give you an idea of the forces involved in an in flight break up, the aircraft departed controlled flight when a vertical stabiliser separated from the airframe, resulting in a pitch up and an almost instantaneous acceleration from 1 to 20 G's. The aircraft suffered continued breakup and the test pilot was killed. The gear was torn away from the airframe which is how investigators determined the forces involved.

Now... IM NOT saying that is what happened here at all. But an almost instantaneous 20G acceleration is not good for anything...... but the reason i mention it is that the test pilot didn't get a distress call in and there was in instant loss of telemetry.

[Greenlights]

hum...Passsport stolen indeed.
Ok, if we suppose terrorism for exemple, then why attacking a Malaysian a/c ?
It is often related to politics issues so...I don't see the point if we suppose that.

[rachcollins]

Just google " Christian Kozel Austrian " or " Luigi Maraldi Italian " and specify results from the last 24 hrs


Both had their passports stolen in Thailand, both were not on the flight in question, there stolen passports were used to board MH370

[LegallyBlonde]

Source for stolen passports also confirmed by relevant embassies in some MSM.
Italian passport belonged to 37 year old male, stolen August 2013, his parents have confirmed story also. Austrian passport belonged to 30 year old male, stolen 2 years ago. Both stolen in Thailand.


Greenlights - Ok, if we suppose terrorism for exemple, then why attacking a Malaysian a/c ?
It is often related to politics issues so...I don't see the point if we suppose that.

Is there any logical point or sense to terrorism? Malaysian A/c - maybe they don't like their brand of Islam? JMO

[smiling monkey]

If you had your passport stolen, wouldn't you report it to your authorities especially if the passport was stolen whilst you were abroad? If not, how else would you leave the country?

If you have reported it, then the passport would then have been cancelled. Can a cancelled passport not be picked up by border control officers at International immigration? If not, then we have a major flaw in the aviation security system which needs fixing immediately.

In the meantime, we have aviation security officers continuing to confiscate nail clippers and bottles of water at the boarding gate thinking this prevents global terrorism. :rolleyes:

[Livesinafield]

could these just be from tankers?? ships etc?

[andrasz]

Italian passport belonged to 37 year old male, stolen August 2013, his parents have confirmed story also. Austrian passport belonged to 30 year old male, stolen 2 years ago. Both stolen in Thailand.

Hmmm... I can envision the combined efforts of the Italian and Malaysian bureaucracies not quite being sufficient to get that piece of information into the KLIA immigration computers in the elapsed time, after all there was Hari Raya, Christmas, Chinese New Year plus a dozen assorted other holidays to prevent these otherwise dedicated and efficient civil servants from performing their tasks. However the Austrian passport SHOULD have been spotted after 2 years...

could these just be from tankers?? ships etc?
Yes, in fact more likely. Dumping at sea is unfortunately a common practice, especially in that part of the world.

[LegallyBlonde]

Anyone know who the US passengers were? Just wondering if any relevance.

[dk88]

As far as i know, there is no Global database for stolen passports. Only the country which issued the passport can identify a passport as stolen.

[rp122]

From Sky News:

"The two parallel slicks - both between 10 miles (16km) and 12 miles (19km) long and 500 metres apart - were seen by two Vietnamese air force jets off the south coast of Vietnam."

"A Vietnamese government statement said they were consistent with the kind of spills caused by fuel from a crashed airliner.

Rescue boats are being sent to the area from the nearby island of Phu Quoc to look for survivors."




Malaysia Airlines Plane 'Crashes Near Vietnam' (http://news.sky.com/story/1222674/malaysia-airlines-plane-crashes-near-vietnam)

[Lost in Saigon]

Anyone know who the US passengers were? Just wondering if any relevance.

Relevance to what?


USA Today Breakdown of the nationalities on board Flight MH370 (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/03/08/passengers-malaysia-airlines-missing-plane/6195291/)

*The Americans were named as Nicole Meng, 4; Philip Wood, 51; and Yan Zhang, 2.

[deptrai]

Ships would be more likely to dump sludge, bilge water with possibly some almost solid heavy fuel oil, and used lubricants.

Jet fuel is very different. Experts will check this out, ships are on the way.

To all the clowns who keep repeating "authorities should look at fr24" rest assured they know how to do their jobs.

[virginblue]

Anyone know who the US passengers were? Just wondering if any relevance.

A two-year old and a four-year old each travelling with two relatives of Chinese nationality (so presumably born in the US) and a 51 year old male who appears to be an IBM exectuive.

So apparently no relevance.

[paxrune]

For all we know the two false passport carriers might be some government's spooks entering China. Or illegal immigrants. Or something far more mundane.

[andrasz]

there is no Global database for stolen passports

True, but countries where illegal immigration is a problem do exchange this information bilaterally. In the EU there is a single Schengen database, but transfer of information is done on a national level.

Because of this differing likelihood of getting caught, some passports are more prone to being stolen than others.

[HeathrowAirport]

@scoobys

Actually they would have had about 40,000kg's trip fuel for that routing last night which should have took 5 1/4 to 5 and 1/2 hours. Depending on Alternates - which are TIANJIN (ZBTJ) and Zhengding (ZBSJ) for Beijing your looking at another 10-15,000kgs in additional fuel after ALTN, FINAL, APU, TAXI, CONT and any Additional fuel the flight crew chose.

Total's of around about 50-60,000kgs are correct.

Your post was not helpful in the slightest, mine was responding to someone asking how much fuel they had on-board so based upon EU Operations you are looking at about 7 hours or so for a 5 and bit hours flight. So thank you for your kind "I am 21 year old and no nothing gesture" - it really helps this thread.

[Interested Lay Bloke]

Does a modern jet like a 772 carry that much heavy "oil" - enough to form a slick 10-12 miles long? I can see it would have a lot of jet fuel, but what is the oil used for, apart from lubrication?

[MG23]

Can anyone explain to me why they are still using FDR's (designed in the 50's) that must be searched at the bottom of the oceans if such things go wrong ? Unbelievable !

1. Satellite bandwidth is expensive. All that aircraft data sent 'just in case' is bandwidth that can't be used for any other purpose.
2. Retrofitting all existing aircraft with new hardware to do so is expensive.
3. In a catastrophic failure, it's unlikely to help, because you need both power, and a working antenna pointed in roughly the right direction, to send useful information.
4. Privacy. The existing ACARS infrastructure already told us what happened to AF447, but only the cockpit voice recordings told us why. I'm guessing most crews wouldn't want everything they say on board sent to a remote database via satellite.

It's certainly doable, but far from simple.

[Rory166]

Various people have said that a stolen passport is cancelled and therefore useless. Whilst this may be true of immigration checkpoints it would seem that other uses of the passport are still possible. When you present your passport at check in there may be no link to establish whether the passport is valid.

Just seen dk post. Apparently the only thing you cannot do with a stolen passport is enter the country that issued it.

[jackharr]

Just out of curiosity, while we all wait for the facts, has there ever been a proven case of an aircraft being hit by a meteorite???Or space debris (old satellites, etc)? Certainly satellite/satellite collisions have already occurred in low earth orbit.

[silverstrata]

>>Oil Spill pictures


Thanks for those pics, but that looks like a common algal bloom to me. Used to see them all the time on inshore coastal work. Nothing like a refined avtur spill.

And if this was a crash site, there would be cushons and seat squabs and all kinds of debris. Sorry, but this is not the crash site.

Silver

[SOPS]

I think that's the point. There is no wreckage . As i said before, where the hell is it?

[deptrai]

It takes very little oil/jet fuel whatever to form a long/large slick on water. Yes of course the a/c would have carried enough to form a slick like that. These questions are very simple to answer, someone is on the way to look at it, they will take a sample, and we will know the source.

[flyingfox]

The picture of 'a slick' in post #357 looks like coral spawn.

[virginblue]

A marine scientist has stated on another forum that what NBC is running as pictures of the oil slick spotted from a Vietnamese aircraft is indeed sea sawdust...

[1stspotter]

In June 2012 a couple of hijackers tried to break into the cockpit of a Chinese airliner. They had explosives but these did not detonate.
Three Chinese sentenced to death over plane hijack attempt - BNO News (http://bnonews.com/urgent/10272/three-chinese-sentenced-to-death-over-plane-hijack-attempt/)

[HeathrowAirport]

Does anyone know the actual correct time it was last known to be a physical known object? Airspace timings are follows ZJSA- 2hrs after DEP "BUNTA A1 IKELA"

[andrasz]

Then why does the BBC continue to state that MH370 "vanished" at 1840 GMT Friday (0240 local Saturday)

Because Malaysian Airlines still say so on their website (posted at 4:20PM today): "Sepang, 8 March 2014: Malaysia Airlines is still unable to establish any contact or determine the whereabouts of flight MH370. Earlier today, Subang ATC had lost contact with the aircraft at 2.40am."

[No Fly Zone]

If we ever learn the details of this loss, it will be a while. In the interim, someone please tell me that this loss is NOT the result of a high altitude stall, similar to AF447. Please... If the drivers know what they are doing, such events ARE recoverable.

[Livesinafield]

why is everyone so shocked at no wreckage???

Look at AF447 it was a while before anything was found and that landed low speed and relatively flat angle

If MAH370 and i say IF it disintegrated in flight or exploded or slammed nose first into the sea at 600+ MPH then there will not be a lot left of it, could take days to see wreckage appear

i think people forget sometimes about the complexity of SAR, the area these guys are covering is enormous!

tonight's MAH370 has just taken off in a T7....i can image the atmosphere on that flight is awkward....

[LegallyBlonde]

@Ivanbogus- if it's 'amateur's night' I would suggest the amateurs are MAS management and whoever is supposedly searching. JMO

[MFC_Fly]

The picture of 'a slick' in post #357 looks like coral spawn.
At best it looks a bit like emulsified heavy oil rather than aviation fuel. But agree with others, looks more like bio.

[dk88]

Both stolen passports were used to buy tickets from China Eastern (codeshare flight):

Stolen passports were used to buy two tickets for Malaysia Airlines missing flight | South China Morning Post (http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1443908/stolen-passports-were-used-buy-two-tickets-malaysia-airlines-missing)

[smiling monkey]

In June 2012 a couple of hijackers tried to break into the cockpit of a Chinese airliner. They had explosives but these did not detonate.
Three Chinese sentenced to death over plane hijack attempt - BNO News

And how is this relevant to MH370? FFS, could people stop posting for the sake of posting unless they have something relevant to contribute? How sad that Pprune is now being taken over by spotters and SLF's who really have NFI. :rolleyes:

[glenbrook]

I hear you.
I posted a plea (back on page 12) for people to stop spouting nonsense and it was immediately deleted. I guess it wasn't rumor enough.

We know almost nothing about this incident, and yet people are talking about meteors. It took two years to get the relevant facts for AF447

[RiverCity]

Smiling Monkey: >>>...and SLF's who really have NFI.<<<

But perhaps some insight.

[andrasz]

At best it looks a bit like emulsified heavy oil

Agree. And in any case, in light seas I find it hard to imagine that a 15 mile slick can form in 12 hours.

It was stated in official releases that the air search is suspended for the night, while surface vessels are heading to the general area. I don't expect any further information before a couple of hours after daybreak, so until then it's amateurs night.

[N1 Vibes]

Not 'amateur night' at all. You need to look at the number of Trent 700 and 800 engines that have suffered Fan Blade release over the past 7 years. You then need to ask Airbus and RR how one event was categorised as 'contained', when the blade had enough energy to exit the engine, through the inlet cowl, through the wing to body fairing and then scuffed the fuselage. If the blade had a little more energy then it could have punctured the skin at pressure. You also need to ask RR and Airbus how another event on a T700 engine resulted in an engine fire which was not extinguished by 2x fire bottle shots, a basic ETOPS requirement.

Then again I'm no expert and this is pure speculation, but I certainly wouldn't rule out other posters stating engine failure as a potential cause....

[snowfalcon2]

It has been said on this (http://dantri.com.vn/xa-hoi/tau-viet-nam-dang-tiep-can-vung-bien-nghi-co-2-vet-dau-loang-847225.htm) and other sites that airborne search is paused for the night, but ships are on their way to the search area.

Local sunrise tomorrow is approx 0611 Vietnam time (UTC+7, i.e. 2311Z).

EDIT: Here's a picture showing today's observations, including the Vietnamese AN26 sightings (as well as an earlier, since recalled, Vietnamese info).

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19786702/MH370/Spottings%2020140308.JPG

And here's a picture from the Vietnamese news site showing today's search area allocations. The hatched area was the responsibility of Vietnam, light green Malaysia and darker green Singapore. Tomorrow this map will most probably look different.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19786702/MH370/Search_Areas_roi1-23466.jpg

[DB64]

Quote: The wingtip repairs are unlikely to be a factor, the aircraft has been back in service for around a year, any problems would have shown up earlier (the Ancient Greek).


In previous accidents it took many years for botched repairs to manifest; JAL 123 and China Airlines 611 come to mind.

[glenbrook]

Please, if you are going to speculate, get your facts right.
It wasn't a turbine blade that failed QF32, it was a disc. Turbofan engines are tested for blade off events.
There is no evidence of any failure of this or any kind in this incident.
The only actual hard information we have is the disappearance of the aircraft. The "oil slick" stuff is conjecture. The sea is full of oil-slicks.
The stolen passports are worrying, but not that unusual either. Bad documents don't cause airplanes to disappear.

[okibarog]

You first say repairs is unlikely to be a factor; it has been one year since they were carried out, then conflict yourself by saying some other repairs took longer to manifest themselves on other occasions. What is your point?

[Una Due Tfc]

Even if the 2 individuals with the stolen passports were terrorists, and that's a big if, they still need to get enough explossives on board to cause an in flight break up. That guy who tried to blow up his underpants going into Detroit would have killed 1 or 2 people near him and, at worst, popped a few rivets. You would hope any amount of explossives would be caught going onto an aircraft, especially the amounts needed to cause a structural failure.

[LiamNCL]

Even with people speculating the engine failure , Surely a mayday would have been called if that did happen

[DB64]

DB64, talk about oxymoron?
You first say repairs is unlikely to be a factor; it has been one year since they were carried out, then conflict yourself by saying some other repairs took longer to manifest themselves on other occasions. What is your point?


The first sentence was quoting The Ancient Greek. For some reason his speculation that repairs unlikely to be a factor did not appear as a quote.

[WillowRun 6-3]

Question: is there any factual basis to be concerned whether the sea search is being hampered by, or slowed down or made inefficient by, or even impeded by, the PRC's assertion a few months ago of certain airspace "rights" in that part of the world? I'm not speculating - it's a question.

[King on a Wing]

From 36,000 feet to sea level and no MayDay call....?!
Why do you think.

[Jack1985]

Engine Failure - Would have reported to ATC, it couldn't have been that catastrophic as to immediately down the aircraft.

Fire - Crew would have notified ATC.

Cabin Fire - Crew would have notified ATC.

Whatever it was it was abrupt and catastrophic, initial indications are the track bearing switched from 024 degrees to 333 degrees and altitude went from 35,000ft to 0ft along with the speed going from 468kts to 0kts in the space of one minute - As the flight was being monitored on secondary radar it would seem to me data supplied to the transponder ceased before the transponder eventually cut-out, and the aircraft for some as of yet unknown reason went down.

The only plausible theories I believe which led to the downing of the flight at this stage are;

Terrorism

Technical Nature - specifically in my thinking at the moment is an ADIRU failure previously experienced on a MAS flight - If this possibly happened on MH370, coupled with the fact the aircraft was over the Gulf of Thailand at 01:20 local Malaysian Time this could have had dire consequences if unexpected.

Catastrophic failure - Either an airframe component or it being caused by a sinister source.

What we are forgetting is that the crew were experienced, the captain was known for practicing on the flightsim on his days off and apparently helped in production with the PMDG 777X recently released for flightsim. And freakishly the same crew were filmed on 19 February flying from HKG to KUL on a 777-200 for a program on CNN's Business Traveller.

CNN Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com (http://edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2014/03/08/newday-quest-malaysia-plane-search.cnn&video_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.boards.ie%2Fvbulletin%2Fshow thread.php%3Ft%3D2057164133%26page%3D13)

[LiamNCL]

I agree , To have no mayday call from 35,000 ft something dramtic has brought it down , What it was we are only speculating

[Lost in Saigon]

I agree that it is unlikely but AF447 made no calls on the way down either.

[newscaster]

Maybe someone important was onboard that needed to be done away with.

As for the non-Asian foreigners the only ones were the Austrian, Italian who ever they were, Russian, both Ukranians, four Australians, one American and three French.

The Dutch, both Canadians, both New Zealanders, one French, two Americans and three Australians were all Asian names.

[Global Warrior]

Guys.... Come on.... Theres nothing wrong with speculation.... this is after all a rumour network.... But lets not attack each other.... let stupid comments slide. The mods will pick up on them and do whatever they want with them.

Currently theres an airliner MISSING. It didn't arrive at its destination. There are relatives of those on board suffering... and it must be a nightmare for them as they have no news at all, apparently.

The bottom line here, i guess, is that we all need to show a little more respect, because its looking increasingly like people have lost their lives...loved ones have lost their relatives. Its a sad day :( Speculate away but do it with decorum.....

There have been some really moronic posts here..... but lets be professional and let them slide and speculate respectfully.

Just my 2 bobs worth

GW

[lostinp]

there is many a rusty rig leaking oil into the ocean in this area I was on a chopper flight a couple of weeks ago and noticed 3 just south of the presumed accident site.

[scoobys]

@ heathrow

do you have a jaa dispatchers license ??

do you have a 777 type rating.

As simple yes or no will do here.


If no, why not wait till the professionals have done there job

[porterhouse]

specifically in my thinking at the moment is an ADIRUthere are 2 aboard 777. plus the unit itself is fault tolerant.

What we are forgetting is that the crew were experiencedThis in itself is meaningless, history of aircraft accidents is full of examples of where an 'experienced' crew essentially contributed to the catastrophe.

The only plausible theoriesNo, there are many other 'plausible' theories, some many of us would never think of. Aircraft were brought down by highly 'implausible' causes.

[captjns]

Curious to know if Dangerous Goods were onboard... specifically lithium batteries. While we are D/G approved, that is one of a few items I refuse to carry on my jet.

[albatross]

I know someone is going to ask about sea current speed and set RE SAR. debris/oil slick drift so thought I would post this

Monsoon Surface Drift of South China Sea (http://www.coi.gov.cn/scs/introduction/hailiu.htm)

[Jack1985]

there are 2 aboard 777. plus the unit itself is fault tolerant.

But you ignore the fact previously a MAS flight had both completely fail.

This in itself is meaningless, history of aircraft accidents is full of examples of where an 'experienced' crew essentially contributed to the catastrophe.

But you ignore the fact that experienced crews are also less likely to be involved in self-inflicted accidents.

No, there are many other 'plausible' theories, some many of us would never think of. Aircraft were brought down by highly 'implausible' causes.

But you ignore the fact I listed MY OWN plausible theories.

Are you going to continue picking off people to suit your agenda? if so you can keep away from my posts.

[Ian W]

hum...Passsport stolen indeed.
Ok, if we suppose terrorism for exemple, then why attacking a Malaysian a/c ?
It is often related to politics issues so...I don't see the point if we suppose that.

Perhaps they were not attacking the aircraft but someone on it. There are two 'stolen passport' IDs on the aircraft and a 'redacted' ID.

[Andy_S]

I agree that it is unlikely but AF447 made no calls on the way down either.

You agree that what was unlikely? Engine failure?? Not applicable to AF447.

AF447 went from cruising altitude to impact in just 3 1/2 minutes. During that time the crew were rather to busy trying to work out what was going wrong to make any calls.

An engine problem such as fuel starvation (for example) wouldn't have downed MH370 that quickly. I reckon they could have glided for 20-30 minutes which would have given them plenty of time to put out a Mayday. The fact they didn't do so suggests that whatever happened was either immediately catastrophic or quickly became so. Beyond that, I wouldn't like to speculate.

[Suzeman]

[Global Warrior quote]Currently theres an airliner MISSING. It didn't arrive at its detonation.

In the circumstances, a rather unfortunate spelling mistake...

I wonder whether the discrepancies in timings of the event were that at 1840 Subang ATC reported to MH or the authorities that they had lost contact with the aircraft, having tried to contact it and locate it for an hour or so. Could be something was lost in a translation?

Just a thought.

[LiamNCL]

Having looked out for MH370 crossing the same area this evening , The coverage seems very stable in that region on FR24 to suggest that when it indicated altitude 0 last night it was infact not receiving data due to something sudden.

[enola-gay]

Perhaps they were not attacking the aircraft but someone on it. There are two 'stolen passport' IDs on the aircraft and a 'redacted' ID.

The fake pair of pax would not be bothered about Chinese immigration officers detecting 2 stolen passports at Beijing if they had no intention of arriving there, or anywhere else for that matter.

[DCP123]

DaveReid (at 124 or 124),

I'm not really sure what obscure point of terminology you were trying to make about my reference to "publicly available" radar information and I don't really care. I posted twice to let people know that FlightRadar24 shows radar/transponder tracking information with the aircraft disappearing in an area with good coverage at 17:19 UTC, not the time initially misreported by the airline and ATC. I posted this at a time when most commenters were still operating under the incorrect belief that the plane flew for two hours before crashing.

I think I contributed something of value to the discussion. How about you?

BTW, all subsequent data confirms that the plane went down at the place and time shown by the FlightRadar24 data I was mentioning

So, please excuse the :mad: out of me if my non-aviator terminology didn't liveup to your expectations.

[CaptainDrCook]

Canadians, both New Zealanders, one French, two Americans and three Australians were all Asian names.

One of the New Zealanders was not Asian: Two Kiwis feared dead on missing Malaysia Airlines aircraft - National - NZ Herald News (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11216515)

[HeathrowAirport]

No but I am a Pilot at Biggin Hill Airport, I don't claim to be someone I'm not. But the T7 has a set fuel burn rate [SFCs] for different periods of flight which for this flight worked out to be 40T of trip fuel. I assume you know this.

The aircraft going missing had probably 70℅ of it's fuel uptake left - so 5-6hours unburned at time of dissapearance.

[DaveReidUK]

initial indications are the track bearing switched from 024 degrees to 333 degrees and altitude went from 35,000ft to 0ft along with the speed going from 468kts to 0kts in the space of one minute

No, those are initial misinterpretations of what FlightRadar24 is and isn't capable of telling us.

[LASJayhawk]

Quote:
Curious to know if Dangerous Goods were onboard... specifically lithium batteries. While we are D/G approved, that is one of a few items I refuse to carry on my jet.


Yes there were. In the ELT, each ULB, FMS not to mention cell phones, iPads, notebook computers...


I wonder if we should consider adding a baro switch to the ELT? That way a major failure that depressurized the cabin would start the ELT and might provide a better position fix prior to impact. If the aircraft is recovered by the flight crew they can always reset it from the remote switch.

[SOPS]

What is an ADR? God give me strength

[Lost in Saigon]

You agree that what was unlikely? Engine failure?? Not applicable to AF447.

AF447 went from cruising altitude to impact in just 3 1/2 minutes. During that time the crew were rather to busy trying to work out what was going wrong to make any calls.

An engine problem such as fuel starvation (for example) wouldn't have downed MH370 that quickly. I reckon they could have glided for 20-30 minutes which would have given them plenty of time to put out a Mayday. The fact they didn't do so suggests that whatever happened was either immediately catastrophic or quickly became so. Beyond that, I wouldn't like to speculate.

I agree that it is unlikely that MH370 had time to make a call, but it is possible they had time, but were too preoccupied to do so. Just as with AF447.

[Jack1985]

What about a triple ADR failure?

Precisely what I also think, but apparently its unwise to think of such things!

Just re the stolen passports, is there not a high crime rate of stolen passports in Thailand, and possibly could this simply have been immigrants trying to get into China? I would be unaware I have to admit of immigration trends to China, initially I would have though it wouldn't be that high - But its the only real concrete information in relation to MH370 at the moment, alike AF447 I think it will be a while before we actually know what happen this aircraft.

No, those are initial misinterpretations of what FlightRadar24 is and isn't capable of telling us

FR24 released the last tracking file of MH370 take a look at there twitter. And I hardly believe you are in a high position to determine if its misinterpretation are you?

[wiggy]

What about a triple ADR failure?

Air Data Reference (ADR)

And a T7 has how many of these devices?

[Jack1985]

And a T7 has how many of these devices?

I am probably wrong with this but I believe on the T7 there are two ADIRUs (Air Data Inertial Reference Unit) for each pilots section complemented by a secondary attitude air data reference unit (SAARU) as well as standby instruments, stand to be corrected on that!

[SOPS]

Last time I checked the 777 had no ADRs, but when I get to work tomorrow, I will check.

[Wirbelsturm]

777-200 'planned' fuel burn equates to an average of 6 tonnes an hour in the cruise. Extra needs to be taken into account for climb and cruise climbs.


Minimum reserve fuel for our fleet 'tends' to be around 3 tonnes.
Taxi fuel, contingency fuel and diversion fuel on top.


For example a recent flight of mine, 10 and 1/2 hours.
Trip fuel 77.3 tonnes
Contingency 2 tonnes
Div 3 tonnes
Reserves 3 tonnes
Taxi 500kg
Total 85.8 tonnes.


Make of that what you will if you want to calculate how much fuel they would have had on board.


As a previous SAR pilot kerosene will show up as smooth 'rainbowing' on the surface of the sea. Crude oil produces the brown slicks and grey water discharges from merchant vessels.


My condolences to the crew and passengers, I will await the accident report with interest.

[Rockhound]

Andrasz (post #372)
The advisory on the MAS website that contact with MH370 was lost at 0240 local is obviously in error, perhaps unintentional or a misinterpretation.

Rockhound

[DaveReidUK]

FR24 released the last tracking file of MH370 take a look at there twitter. And I hardly believe you are in a high position to determine if its misinterpretation are you?

So (correct me if I am misquoting you, please) you are seriously suggesting that the aircraft's final ADS-B squitter indicated a true altitude of zero, presumably at the precise instant when (obviously intact, despite no voice or ACARS comms during the descent from FL350) it impacted the sea. :ugh:

Which bit of your scenario have I got wrong?

[Wirbelsturm]

Last time I checked the 777 had no ADRs, but when I get to work tomorrow, I will check.


Nope, no ADR. ADIRS. Air Data Inertial Reference System provides


primary, secondary and standby air data.
Inertial reference information.


Components are:
One ADIRU
One SAARU
Eight air data modules
six static ports
three pitot probes
two angle of attack vanes
two TAT probes.

[Enos]

T777 is pretty bullet, idiot proof in its design, so if the ADIRU went off then the SAARU would have taken over, if every thing failed the aircraft is capable of being hand flown all be it in a degraded state.



The guys flying it were pretty experienced, and giving the captains age and experience would have been able to hand fly it, having probably flown steam driven planes prior to getting on the T777.

If as its been said here its altitude went from 35000ft to 0 in one minute, its either blown up (bomb or massive structural failure) or the wings come off due to fatigue from previous damage and its torn its self apart.

Does anyone recall if the guys in TWA800 got a mayday call out.

[Jack1985]

So (correct me if I am misquoting you, please) you are seriously suggesting that the aircraft's final ADS-B squitter indicated a true altitude of zero, presumably at the point where (obviously intact, despite no voice or ATC comms during the descent from FL350) it impacted the sea.

Which bit of your scenario have I got wrong?


No sorry I apologise, what I was basically saying is last night people discredited FR24, but now the location FR24 last broadcast the flight seems to be fairly accurate, although admittedly as there is no wreckage that's unconfirmed. And of course you are correct, the final altitude and speed are erroneous on FR24, sorry if I implied the opposite.

[wiggy]

Wirbelstrum

Nope, no ADR.

Indeed, that's what my "books" say as well....

[MountainBear]

What about a triple ADR failure?


Precisely what I also think, but apparently its unwise to think of such things!

First, total ADR failure is wildly improbable.
Second, even when it has happened it is still possible to fly the plane by turning the systems off.
Third, as such incidents have shown with ADR failure communications are important to get independent confirmation of airspeed.

Finally, I do not recall any ADR fault that has been found to be the primary cause of a hull loss.

[Cloud Cutter]

This talk of ADIRS failure is pure nonsense - simply doesn't explain the situation.

With the available info (admittedly quite sparse), I can't get passed the idea of a catastrophic structural failure. What I wouldn't like to speculate on is the cause, except to note that in 20 years of 777 operation, nothing like this has even come close to happening (compared with the likes of the 747 and DC10 where there were several structure-related occurrences).

[Skipness One Echo]

Some good input from actual real airline pilots, if like me you don't post in here 'cos you know you'd look a proper eejit very quickly, then might some of you consider taking the nonsense over here?
MH370 Malaysian Airlines B772 Missing Enroute KUL-PEK Part 4 — Civil Aviation Forum | Airliners.net (http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/6014316/)

[Jack1985]

Finally, I do not recall any ADR fault that has been found to be the primary cause of a hull loss.

That's very true.

[Stalins ugly Brother]

Simple questions:
1/ What's the flight time Kul-pek?
2/ Would there have been fuel in the centre tank?

[Jack1985]

Simple questions:
1/ What's the flight time Kul-pek?
2/ Would there have been fuel in the centre tank?

1 - 6hrs
2 - The MAS VP last night said it had over 7hrs of fuel

[virginblue]

there was also an Austrian passport involved, same story as per the italian one, stolen last year, passenger not on board but safe in is own house in austria .

Apparently now also some uncertainty whether the Russian passenger on the manifest was on board or not....

[golf yankee one one]

I'm only SLF, so I'm anticipating being insulted by the experts in the next few minutes.
I'm troubled and puzzled by the two passengers travelling on fake/stolen passports.
I think previous posters have suggested that the passport checks at the airport of departure are only to establish that you look like the picture in your passport and that you match the advance passenger information you supplied. Is there any check against the database of the passport issuing country - I don't think so.
There is also of course a difference in the procedure if you need to check a bag or if you go straight to departures with hand luggage - in the latter case it is only the airport that looks at your passport until you reach the departure gate.

No one has yet speculated on the possible significance of two rather than one false passport holders. If the false passports are merely a way of entering China illegally (possibly because of the visa rather than the passport) then this may be unrelated to the loss of the aircraft; if it is a way of getting bad guys on board to do harm or damage, then why two?

Could the fake passengers/passports be a way of disconnecting a passenger from their hold baggage?

All this meandering thought leads me to think that it would be interesting and possibly important to know whether the fake Italian and Austrian (a) came from a connecting flight, (b) was it from the same place and (c) did they check in bags or not?

I do hope as this speculation concerns passengers not the airplane you will forgive me for posting.

[Lost in Saigon]

Simple questions:
1/ What's the flight time Kul-pek?
2/ Would there have been fuel in the centre tank?



There probably was fuel in the center tanks at the time of take-off, but what difference could it possibly make?

What is your thinking?

[phiggsbroadband]

If you scroll half way down the following link, what is the 19:51 report, at N 22.6397 and E 114.0839? (somewhere in the HongKong area, doing 511 kts.


Flight Track Log ? MAS370 ? 07-Mar-2014 ? WMKK / KUL - ZBAA / PEK ? FlightAware (http://uk.flightaware.com/live/flight/MAS370/history/20140306/1635Z/WMKK/ZBAA/tracklog)

[Sop_Monkey]

Enos

"Does anyone recall if the guys in TWA800 got a mayday call out."

No call IIRC.

[Enos]

Stalins ugly Brother (http://www.pprune.org/members/349694-stalins-ugly-brother)
777-200 Holds 28300kgs per wing tank total wings 56600 Sg .803 (correct me if im wrong) if the Sg is less than this you may get about a ton less per wing.


777-200ER Holds 29100kgs per wing tank 58200 total.


Anything above this goes in the CTR tank.


If it was RR powered, bank on a fuel burn between 7-7.5T per Hr so you would have about 7hrs gas, before you start putting fuel in the CTR tank.


Would think a sector like this is about 4 or 5 hrs long 37.5 ton, plus 3.0 ton reserve plus contingency say 1500kg and an alternate say 4 ton 700 kg taxi.


I don't think the CTR tank would have any fuel in it.

[camel]

A posting on Airliners.net saying that this was a code share flight with China Southern Airlines, and that only 7 pax were ticketed by them, including the 'Italian' and the'Austrian'

[Wirbelsturm]

Given that each wing tank holds 29.1 tonnes and the centre tank holds 79.3 and a published fuel endurance of 7 hours then I would estimate the fuel loading to be somewhere in the figure of 53 tonnes given trip, 3 tonne reserves, 6 tonne (guessed) diversion, 2 tonne contingency.


If so then the wing tanks would take that without using the centre tank.


Some aircraft (300 series definitely and some 200 series) have a nitrogen generation system to reduce the flammability of the centre wing tank fuel. I don't know if this aircraft had it fitted.


Reasonable to assume the centre tank was empty at take off.


I personally will happily wait for the official report on this one.

[AN2 Driver]

It's correct that in the case of AF447 the crew did not have time to communicate. But the aircraft did, via ACARS. There were several status messages sent during the upset which were recovered right away and communicated pretty fast. The aircraft was able to "communicate" due to the fact that its systems worked until impact.

In the case of the 777 we have no such indication so far. While I don't know if the 777 has the same kind of capability to send out ACARS maintenance status messages, it would surprise me if not. And, assuming it can, if nothing has been received, it would be one more indication that at least some of the the aircrafts systems ceased to work instantaneously.

From where I am sitting, whatever happened to this airplane was totally unexpected to the crew and catastrophic enough to prevent any coms. WHAT that was, we won't know until the aircraft is found and recovered.

[Lost in Saigon]

Looking at FlightRadar, most of the aircraft outbound for Vietnam from the Malaysian peninsula are doing about 450-500Knots over the sea. So how, does an aircraft allegedly 2 hours out from KL only end up in the 500 miles tops from that place ? The current search area must be wrong.


The search area is correct. The "2 hours out of KL" is wrong.

[Enos]

AN2 Driver (http://www.pprune.org/members/78226-an2-driver)


The T777 sends all sorts of messages back to the company and definitely sends system status messages when things are wrong.

[Propellerhead]

I assume they were outside VHF comms at the time? Would they have been CPDLC at the time? If so you can declare mayday via datalink using satcom. If not then its possible to lose HF contact or at least make it difficult to put out a mayday. As you say though, if decompression etc then would probably expect maintenance messages to have been sent.

[Andy_S]

Looking at FlightRadar, most of the aircraft outbound for Vietnam from the Malaysian peninsula are doing about 450-500Knots over the sea. So how, does an aircraft allegedly 2 hours out from KL only end up in the sea 500 miles tops from that place ? The current search area must be wrong.

More likely the "two hours out" statement.......

[Capot]

I'm troubled and puzzled by the two passengers travelling on fake/stolen passports.Just as an aside, on a course in the '80s about dealing with major incidents with numerous fatalities, one of the lectures was by Kentons, who at that time, and perhaps now, undertook the task of identifying victims from whatever remains were available at most of not all such events in the UK.

One of the many memorable things we learnt was the fact that in every such event, about 5% of the victims will be travelling under false identities, or secretly under their own identities, or otherwise are not quite what they appear to be. The speaker cited an amazing dance troupe of young girls, who turned out to be entirely male. Others were travelling on false passports, and on every flight, it seems, there is at least one gent with a lady not his wife/partner, who was supposed to be somewhere else entirely (the gent, not the lady).

So I wouldn't be too troubled or puzzled by this (I'm puzzled about why you are "troubled"); it's pretty much normal and doesn't mean anything.

[AN2 Driver]

Enos,

The T777 sends all sorts of messages back to the company and definitely sends system status messages when things are wrong.

That would be my expectation, thanks for confirming that. So far however, nothing along these lines has been stated, while Malaysian has been pretty open with information so far.

I do wonder if that may be an indication that there are no data. In which case, the indication would be towards an event which cut power and datalinks pretty instantaneously.

[enola-gay]

There cannot be as many as more than 1% of fake passports in use around the world. So having more than that number on one flight looks like an organised event. How many more PAX from codeshare CSA booking will turn out to be bogus. How many bags transferred at KL?


This event looks like it originated in Southern China.

[MountainBear]

Could the fake passengers/passports be a way of disconnecting a passenger from their hold baggage?In theory, no. Those bags are supposed to be removed if the passenger doesn't actually board the airplane. But if one of the ground crew were to "look the other way" then it might be possible to sneak something on that way.

The one aspect that causes me to discount the terror possibility right now is that there has been no public claim of responsibility. Difficult to advance a cause through terror when no one knows who did it!

[DaveReidUK]

We've seen two theories advanced in previous posts that suggest a possible link between the accident and the 2012 wingtip incident and/or subsequent repair:

a) that the ground collision at Pudong caused undetected damage elsewhere in the wing structure that led to an incipient, possibly fatigue-related, subsequent failure

b) that an eventual failure of the repair itself led to aeroelastic flutter, which in turn caused the wing to fail

Personally, I don't buy (a), but either could account for the sudden inability of the crew to aviate, navigate or communicate.

Is there an aerodynamicist in the house?

[Ida down]

According to the Australian, Malaysian Airlines had massive restructure problems with management problems, Govt and union interference. It must be catching. Still nothing, other than either a massive hull or wing failure, rather unlikely in that aircraft, suicide, again highly unlikely, in the Skipper anyway, and obviously if he ran out of gas, again highly unlikely, he would have had plenty of glide time to have a chat, and prepare for a ditching. This is a huge concern to all in the industry, hull/wing failure, fuel failure, suicide, bomb, missile. They need to know quickly and I know I am stating the bleedin obvious, but anything this untidy is of great concern to all involved in the industry, and a constant worry to all airline families, as their sons, daughters, partners, siblings, take to the air daily. May they find her today.

[vetles]

phiggsbroadband (http://www.pprune.org/members/395550-phiggsbroadband)

If you scroll half way down the following link, what is the 19:51 report, at N 22.6397 and E 114.0839? (somewhere in the HongKong area, doing 511 kts.
(http://www.pprune.org/members/395550-phiggsbroadband)Flight Track Log ? MAS370 ? 07-Mar-2014 ? WMKK / KUL - ZBAA / PEK ? FlightAware (http://apicdn.viglink.com/api/click?format=go&key=1e857e7500cdd32403f752206c297a3d&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pprune.org%2Frumours-news%2F535538-mh370-contact-lost-22.html&out=http%3A%2F%2Fuk.flightaware.com%2Flive%2Fflight%2FMAS370 %2Fhistory%2F20140306%2F1635Z%2FWMKK%2FZBAA%2Ftracklog&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pprune.org%2Frumours-news%2F535538-mh370-contact-lost-23.html)

The link seems to take you to the flight dated 20140306, not 20140307, as the one in question.

[delorean79]

In Russian. Stolen Passport (http://www.echomsk.spb.ru/news/kriminal/rossiyanin-propavshiy-samolet.html)

This one is to be confirmed by Russia anyway. Italian and Austrian have been confirmed by authorities, but not the Russian one.

If they confirm this, I will start thinking that this is not a coincidence.

Two stolen passports, and knowing the security in KL... doesn't look sospicious for me yet. Many holes in the cheese and they know.

[Propellerhead]

Datalink has a habit of dropping off and back on fairly regularly so possible that telemetry not sent. Otherwise indicates that aircraft broke up in midair.

[silverstrata]

I'm troubled and puzzled by the two passengers travelling on fake/stolen passports.




I am also concerned, but more troubled and puzzled by dozens of aircraft and hundreds of trawlers and ships not finding any flotsam or wreckage - in a whole 12 hours of daylight. Most odd.

"Descend to 500' and take me to N Korea" ?

[Return_2_Stand]

I know people have said it's nothing to do with the passport thing. But with talk of a third stolen passport you have to wonder.

Also 7 pax were booked on the code share flight, maybe they expected to be on China Southern Airlines, not Malaysian?

Several single nationalities onboard as well, "1 each from Russia, Italy, Taiwan, the Netherlands and Austria" might be nothing, but...

[Flapping_Madly]

I think I've read this whole thread but may have missed this if it has been asked already.

Would Rolls Royce have been monitoring the engines minute by minute during flight?

Just SLF and curious.

[WillowRun 6-3]

A question about the pax on false passports: would not a reasonably rational official with responsibility in the civil aeronautics and/or the airline sector expect that someone sneaking into the People's Republic of China - using a stolen passport - select some mode of transport other than a T7 flight? I mean if you reverse the sequential order of the facts (a favorite law prof and attorney trick) and tell such an official that "we" (loosely defined, here) "know three individuals appear to have made an attempt to enter the PRC using stolen passports", it would be quite unexpected for the postulated official to exclaim, "oh, I bet they boarded a T7 flight from Kuala Lumpur."

What is the state of airborne maritime surveillance in support of the sea surface search? It's not as robust as, say, having a RCAF P-3 Orion tasked to the search effort - is it?

I don't have an S-3 in my hands, flying it, but whatever old salt sea sense I have left, I'm sensing something seems like foul play. Just an attitude at this point in time.

P.S. Cross-reference post 459 .... an actually chilling scenario. No comment from YT as to whether any known data is seen as consistent with #459 (yt yours truly).

[Evey_Hammond]

I saw reports earlier that an oil slick had been spotted during the search for MH370. It's interesting to compare the image of it on the BBC website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26496673) (and elsewhere) to images of Trichodesmium (http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/images/stories/large/2010/03/12/microbe1_h.jpg) (aka "Sea Sawdust") because to my untrained eye they look remarkably similar which makes me think the "oil slick" is a false alarm :sad:

[Daysleeper]

I saw reports earlier that an oil slick had been spotted during the search for MH370. It's interesting to compare the image of it on the BBC website (and elsewhere) to images of Trichodesmium (aka "Sea Sawdust") because to my untrained eye they look remarkably similar which makes me think the "oil slick" is a false alarm

I'd suggest the "oil" is the lighter grey streaks on the top right corner of the BBC picture and NOT the yellow stuff in the middle. It's just a poorly centred photo.

[Util BUS]

Foul play?

This reminded me of the recent EY B777 that diverted into CGK with toilet fires. Could there be a reason why the B777 was/is being selected? I have noticed that on other aircraft types the toilets are normally located at the front and back, but vary rarely directly over the wing spar or centre tank. On other aircraft a device detonated at the rear toilets might be manageable especially considering it is so close to the LRBL.

Could the toilets in the mid cabin of the B777 somehow allow access to the centre fuel tanks through the floor, and if so could some crazy individuals have set this alight without need for anything more than an ignition source?

[jugofpropwash]

Question - is there any way that an electrical failure could cause both the crew and the aircraft itself to lose communications, despite the aircraft (at the time, at least) being otherwise intact?

[PhilW1981]

No, would require at least 3 separate systems to fail simultaneously.

[Golf-Mike-Mike]

I've been following this thread throughout the day and much has been made of differing position reports being quoted so thought I'd clarify a couple of things, as speculation continues a day after the event.

As far as I'm aware:
- both these systems rely on users/enthusiasts uploading ADS-B data but they have different users/sources so don't cover the whole globe equally.
- my experience of FR24, living under several airways and Gatwick/Heathrow arrival and departure routes, is that it is very accurate for say 99% of time
- when FR24 has no data in a region, it just doesn't show any aircraft
- as we have several aircraft tracks from FR24 in the general vicinity before and after this incident we can assume MAS370 was more or less where it was displayed as being while at FL350, with the likely exception of the last few miles when the ADS-B was probably transmitting garbage or nothing at all
- when FlightAware has no data it uses the filed flight plans to guesstimate where aircraft may be. The track lines are dashed in those cases whereas they're solid lines if they have ADS-B input. It's not unusual for the guesstimate to be several hundred miles away from where FR24 is showing an aircraft to be. Indeed FlightAware may still say that an aircraft is hundreds of miles and hours from landing when it's on final approach because it lacks the ADS-B data available to FR24 !

That said, all ADS-B transmissions are from the aircraft themselves calculating where they are and this may or may not be exact, indeed many an FR24 aircraft has "landed" several miles from its target airport after a long flight because of these estimates - the A40 north of Heathrow is very popular. This can also be from conflicting data received from several users I believe.

Finally and a comment on this thread, I lost a good friend in a flying incident last year and appreciate all the good efforts to shed light on what will be a devastating day for those involved today. Rumour, supposition, insight, speculation and deduction are what makes PPrune so popular but please let's just try to keep the sniping at bay.

[RobertS975]

The likely impact area is relatively shallow water. The causes of this disaster will be far easier to discover than the challenges presented with AF447. Wreckage, victims, as well as the CVR and the FDR should be relatively easy to recover.

All will likely be known soon enough. My bet is that both the CVR and FDR terminate abruptly.

[deptrai]

What is the state of airborne maritime surveillance in support of the sea surface search? It's not as robust as, say, having a RCAF P-3 Orion tasked to the search effort - is it?

Don't worry. Vietnam doesn't have any of the venerable P-3; but they have several more modern aircraft, and patrol vessels. They're also equipped with Mark 1 eyeball sensors. No need to underestimate them.

An Orion is apparently participating in the search though, just like dozens of other aircraft and vessels, a US one based out of Japan, if that makes you sleep better. Yet, no RCAF aircraft at hand, unfortunately.

[llagonne66]

RobertS975,

Could you be more precise regarding water depth in the Gulf of Thailand ?

[MrSnuggles]

Several pages back I mentioned the 1993 WTC bomber who made a trial run using a fake identity.

Here is some more information on this: Philippine Airlines Flight 434 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Airlines_Flight_434)

(For you who don't want to click: Ramzi Yousef checks in, using a fake ID, on a one-stop flight to Japan, A -> B -> Japan. From point A to point B he arranges a bomb to explode the centre fuel tank. He departs at point B. During the flight to Japan the bomb explodes but doesn't penetrate the fuel tank [different model of aircraft]. Philippine police finds out the fake ID is really Mr Bomber and raids his appartment. Damning evidence of foul play, and Mr Bomber ends up in US prison. Plan was to blow up about 12 US airliners simultaneously.)

Now, this has to do with the terrorist angle of this missing mystery as this COULD have been a repeat of the above. Some people questioned why terrorists would choose a Malaysian airline... simple answer is "convenience". IF terrorists did this (AND WE DO NOT KNOW THAT YET) they might just have chosen this flight for plain convenience. Nothing to do with Malaysia or even China for that matter. Just as in the case with the Philippine airline.

But, to debunk my theory so noone believes it too much, remember that it would be plenty foolish to copy a previous trial run. I'm sure intelligence services aren't THAT easily fooled.

[MrSnuggles]

WhatsaLizad?

I post a request that only pilots or those with first hand knowledge continue posting. I would also extend that to engineers, dispatchers or others with real systems and maybe SAR knowledge.
Yes, I would like that too.

But I hope I am informative enough with the terrorist angle. Like, IF (again: IF) this was a terrorist act, noone necessarily needs or wants to claim responsibility. Not if it is a trial run.

I also wish to point out that while secondary radar might show the plane as vanished, primary radar still gives information about its whereabouts. We need to keep attention to what they say about the primary radar. Vietnamese military are quite advanced so may have some information, we just need to wait for it.

[barrel_owl]

People have posted a lot of "it could have been" or "must have been" possibilities, but the one that I haven't seen mentioned (and maybe I missed it) is the possibility of pilot/crew suicide as in Egyptair 990. No one really wants to think about that and the probability of it being the cause is very, very remote, but it is still, a possibility. I can't see any similarity with EA 990 or LAM 470. Both aircraft were tracked on radar when losing altitude. Not with MAS 370. Apparently the last secondary return available indicated an altitude of 38,000 feet, then nothing. This fact, if confirmed, is certainly disturbing and raises lots of questions, but more or less excludes any similarity with the aforementioned crash cases.

[Global Warrior]

This terrible occurrence is surely a terrorist act but I am puzzled by the lack of a group claiming responsibility.

Splinter group operating on their own?? Who knows. Either way, an airliner is missing, seemingly with no trace :(

[fatmanmedia]

I would take the last 1 minute of data that everyone is talking about with a pinch of salt, to go from 35,000ft to 0ft in one minute would indicate a power on vertical dive.

I know the only thing that is important is that they find the wreckage and get the FDR and the FVR and establish what went on from there.

Fats

[mm43]

Could you be more precise regarding water depth in the Gulf of Thailand ? Within a radius of 20NM of 7N 104E the water depth on average is between 40 and 55 meters.

The surface current is weak and generally flowing in a SW direction at between 0.1 to 0.15 m/s.

[mercurydancer]

There may well have been many fishing boat calls, but coordinating the calls and even to make sense of them, would be very difficult. Would many have recognised a disintegrated airliner going into the sea? Establishing reliability of the radio calls will take some while.

[llagonne66]

Thanks mm43 for your feedback.

It means that once the crash (I guess that now nobody is doubting anymore about using that dreaded word) site is located, it won't take two years (ref. AF447) to get the recorders if thay have survived the event.

[northerntomcat]

Here is a Nautical chart for the area.

Chart 93010 (http://www.charts.noaa.gov/NGAViewer/93010.shtml)

[snowfalcon2]

I've browsed the Vietnamese news sites. Google's translator is far from perfect, but very interesting anyway. The Thanh Nien site (http://www.thanhnien.com.vn/pages/default.aspx) has some interesting data of the SAR operation:
- Apparently three MI-171 helicopters have been involved (02, 04 and 431) and temporarily based at Ca Mau at the coast. At 1710, one of them "discovered abnormalities in the oil slick Shoals Ca Mau, at the rig DK1-10 of about 50 km to the southwest." "As noted, the scope of oil slick is about 20 km. This is a very unusual phenomenon."

(I have not located the DK1-10 but believe it to be close inshore. This is probably unconnected to MH370).

- Two AN-26 search aircraft took off from Than Son Nat airport at the capital Ho Chi Minh, at 1430 and 1500 local time.
- There is a video taken aboard AN-26 number 261 including also the "oil slick" picture widely discussed here. The flight was apparently a very unusual flight for the air force, judging by the fact it had a Lieutenant Colonel, Vu Duc Long, as captain and two further Lieutenant Colonels aboard.
- At 1610 it reached the search region and descended to 2400m (7800ft). They could not descend lower due to Malaysian aircraft searching at the lower altitude of 1500m. It returned to base at 1820.
- Tomorrow morning there will be two flights in the search area.

Here's a picture of today's defined route:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19786702/MH370/mbtrunghieu6.jpg

- 2 ships, HQ954 and HQ637, are also on their way to the search area.

I have tried to make sense of the "oil slick" picture but will not make any speculations. Judging from other oil slick pictures, they look very different depending on sun angle, cloudiness and other factors.

Edit: clarify

[Ian W]

The one aspect that causes me to discount the terror possibility right now is that there has been no public claim of responsibility. Difficult to advance a cause through terror when no one knows who did it!

There are some 'organizations' that are known to use stolen passports of various nationalities that refuse to 'confirm or deny' knowledge of incidents. Also suddenly realizing that the aircraft was Malaysian and not China Southern would affect the wish for self-publicity.

[MrSnuggles]

Somebody mentioned the plane possibly being hijacked. Hijackers could have demanded transponders off and "low" flying. Primary radar can tell more.

If there really is no debris in the water, this could be one of many leads for investigators.

Depending on the wish of the hijackers the plane could have ended up anywhere. A Nigerian (OR was it Ethiopian?) plane was commanded to Australia but of course ran out of fuel and crashed in the ocean.

This does seem far fetched because hijackers usually want to speak to someone, unless they intend to do serious harm like 9/11.

But as many other have posted... the sudden and unannounced disappearance is unsettling....

[SaturnV]

It may prove interesting on whether the passengers with the stolen passports originated in Kuala Lumpur, or connected from another flight(s), and their seat assignments.

[europaflyer]

A few people have asked questions about the depth in the likely impact area. The Gulf of Thailand is relatively shallow, and the depths in the area of interest are around 50m. When the debris is located, a full salvage a la TWA 800 is possible.

Specifically, the depth in the area of last radar contact is a fairly even 51m. It is five miles due west of a 1945 wreck on chart 93018 (which after brief googling seems a probable misplacement of the USS Lagarto wreck) for the navigationally challenged. Doubtless someone can be bothered extrapolating a parabolic trajectory from last known position to give a more accurate estimation of debris field position.

Chart 93010 (http://www.charts.noaa.gov/NGAViewer/93010.shtml)

Chart 93018 (http://www.charts.noaa.gov/NGAViewer/93018.shtml)

(edit: someone beat me to it)

[Old Boeing Driver]

Lots of interesting speculations. Let's review a few.

1. It appears the plane was lost in a catastrophic occurrence at altitude.
2. If so, did local fishing boats see anything?
(Early posts indicated lots of boats, but with poor communications capabilities)
3. If a catastrophic occurrence was it:
A. A bomb--would have to have been a good one and well placed.
1.Why has no one taken credit for it yet? (I know some speculations here)
B. Airframe failure? Does 777 have a pressure dome?
C. Descend and take me somewhere.
1. I think the reporting sites would show the a/c at 0 feet if transponder/other equipment made inoperative.
2. If this scenario, where is the plane?
D. Inflight collison with a practice radar intercept/drone/meteorite

[Mahatma Kote]

China normally requires a visa. These are carefully checked including matching the passport photo to the visa applicant.

There is a special no-visa 72 hour transit arrangement for some cities including Beijing. This requires an onward ticket to even get onto a flight to the city. The visa / onward ticket status of both stolen passports will be known to MAS and will be very interesting whatever it turns out to be

China 72-Hour Visa-free Transit in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shenyang and Dalian (http://www.travelchinaguide.com/embassy/visa/free-72hour/)

[llagonne66]

SaturnV

It's quite different from AF447 : potential area is maximum 400 km by 400 km in shallow waters (as per Wikipedia : mean depth is 45 meters and max depth is 80 meters Gulf of Thailand - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Thailand)).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Thailand)

[The Dominican]

You can shut down anything if you take its power source, sure you could disconnect ACARS if you know what C/B's to pull.

Since the Lauda crash it is standard to double down on the Rev Isol valves.

So we are still scratching our heads:confused:

[Speed of Sound]

A bomb--would have to have been a good one and well placed.

Exactly!

If this was indeed caused by an explosive device it was definitely no shoe or underpants bomb. Anyone with the capability to smuggle a real bomb on board and detonate it in flight, would not be traveling on a 2 year old stolen passport.

[robdean]

It has been confidently started in this thread that it would be very difficult indeed to get through an airport using a stolen passport.

It has been confidently stated in this thread that a significant minority of any passenger manifest may be expected typically be travelling on such documentation.

Undoubtedly one of the above is overconfident.

I don't recall past incident passenger manifests triggering such reports of bogus documentation, and if I were investigating this I'd be very curious indeed as to who was travelling on those passports: such as how, when and where they bought their tickets.

Incidentally, I wouldn't regard the FR24 track as definitive, but I would regard it as evidential. I doubt the plane crashed during the time it was tracked as being in flight. I'd regard just beyond the end of that track as a place I'd be very interested to look at: which is not to say I'd be certain of finding anything there.

[ILS27LEFT]

"A posting on Airliners.net saying that this was a code share flight with China Southern Airlines, and that only 7 pax were ticketed by them, including the 'Italian' and the 'Austrian'"

Well I do not believe in coincidences of this magnitude. We just need to see if they were travelling together, seat nrs, form of payment used for both tickets...this time they clearly did not choose to kill rail travellers at stations. They probably did not fully understand the difference between being ticketed on China Southern Airlines and actually flying on their aircraft. Still a plane full of Chinese pax heading to Beijing. Ideal target for Chinese Islamic separatists.

All seems to indicate a massive explosion that instantly disintegrated this aircraft, typically compatible with a terrorist attack (e.g. bomb), if this is not terrorism we are left with a missile attack or rare collision. Nothing else logically possible.:mad:

[Kulwin Park]

:ooh: For a passport to be stolen and picked up by Customs, it has to be REPORTED AS STOLEN first. The Italian one was, but maybe the others weren't reported stolen.

Imagine all the ones travelling the world now, with people not noticing their passport is stolen as they do not travel much.

Sudden ATC signal lost & no contact seems strange, but maybe it had a mid-air collision with a military exercise? It all seems very strange.

[deptrai]

Snowfalcon2, nice effort, but "the capital Ho Chi Minh" ? :(

[Sop_Monkey]

speed of sound

"A bomb--would have to have been a good one and well placed."

Would it? We are talking a pressurized hull here. A fistful of plastic would be more than enough, anywhere within the hull

[red_october]

Long time lurker, first time poster here.

Just thinking - if it was a bomb, wouldn't the debris be scattered all over the place, especially if it detonated @ FL350?

[PhilW1981]

Whilst the 2 (possibly 3) people travelling on stolen passports are an obvious line of enquiry, it's just as likely that those travelling on them could've been doing so for other reasons such as drug smuggling, illegal immigration etc.

[roving]

BEIJING: U.S. officials said on Saturday they are investigating terrorism concerns after two people listed as passengers on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 turned out not to be on the plane and had reported their passports stolen, according to NBCnews.com

"We are aware of the reporting on the two stolen passports," one senior official said.

"We have not determined a nexus to terrorism yet, although it's still very early, and that’s by no means definitive.”

U.S. officials said they were checking into passenger manifests and going back through intelligence.

No Italian was on board the missing flight, the Italian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday, despite an Italian citizen being included on the passenger list.

The passenger list provided by the company includes Luigi Maraldi, 37, an Italian citizen.

Newspaper Corriere Della Sera reported that Maraldi's passport was stolen in Thailand last August. The Italian Interior Ministry was unable to immediately comment on the report.

Austrian Foreign Ministry says the Austrian citizen reported to be on the flight is safe. The passport was stolen. – ANN/China Daily

[Old Boeing Driver]

I would think that a bomb would leave a lot of surface debris, and a fireball that many would have been reporting on by now.

It was a clear night with other planes in the sky.

A fist full of plastic would have to be of very good quality and placed pretty well.

Aloha landed with 20 feet of the fuselage blown away from fatigue failure. I know, not the same differential.

Not saying it isn't possible.

Again....no one taking credit it for it ....yet.

[The Ancient Geek]

potential area is maximum 400 km by 400 km

That makes 160000 square kilometers to search for small floating debris such as seat cushions. This is not an easy task and it could take a long time.

[Speed of Sound]

Would it? We are talking a pressurized hull here. A fistful of plastic would be more than enough, anywhere within the hull

That is right, and given that sourcing a fistful of plastic explosives, getting it on board an aircraft in the right location and detonating it in flight is a hell of a lot harder and much more expensive than getting hold of a fake passport why would anyone risk all that effort by using a stolen passport which has in all likelihood been reported to the authorities?

[ManUtd1999]

I would think that a bomb would leave a lot of surface debris, and a fireball that many would have been reporting on by now.

If it was a huge explosion that scattered the debris far and wide then there surely wouldn't be an oil slick? Fuel would have burnt in the explosion or scattered into droplets? It could of course have been a smaller explosion that made the aircraft uncontrollable but more or less intact.

[mickjoebill]

If this was indeed caused by an explosive device it was definitely no shoe or underpants bomb. Anyone with the capability to smuggle a real bomb on board and detonate it in flight, would not be traveling on a 2 year old stolen passport.
On three occasions I've filmed the detonation of 500ml of home made liquid terror in an airframe, these were demonstrations on unpressurized hulls which were not traveling at 500mph.

Was a "liquid ban" in force at the first security point on this flight?

[llagonne66]

160000 square kilometers is certainly a wide area.
But it's only a first guess as a more detailed analysis of radar data will surely guide SAR activities on a much more limited area.
What is important is water depth : investigators won't need to go 4 kilometers underwater once the crash side is identified.

[RetiredTooEarly]

I don't have much experience on the triple seven, mainly the older B707 and A310's etc but in spite of the much stricter security on entry to the cockpit these days, just hypothetically, IF a couple of guys did access the flight deck (behind a Hostess maybe?) would it be possible to simply take over (disable the crew) and drive the aircraft straight into the water without any flight data etc. being transmitted back to the MAS base?

After 9/11 there can be no doubt that terrorists would be very familiar how to shut down transponders, radio comms and maybe ACARS if fitted etc.etc.

Apologies if this has been addressed already but just too many posts on this tragedy to vet them all to see if this has been raised before .........

I would still think that even with the slackness of security at many of the Asian airports, it would have to be a decent size bomb to bring the aircraft down without any attempt to put out some sort of a radio call ..........?

God forbid, could it be the "first" of the much talked about undetectable mini bombs that are virtually impossible to pick up on (questionable) security checks on passengers?

I know we are all just going in circles now and rehashing the same subjects over and over again hoping for an answer but the "sudden disappearance" of this piece of equipment without a trace has to make one think outside of the box and this is what seems to destroy many of the feasible scenarios to date!

[etudiant]

Basic question.
Do jetliners communicate much with each other during long flights or is the protocol to remain silent unless reporting unusual conditions?
It seems that MH370 had plenty of company in the area, so wondering if there is any insight to be gathered from communications with these other flights.

[skyrangerpro]

Benign weather conditions
Two (maybe more) passengers travelling under false pretences.
A political motive.
Timing of incident during flight
An airline, crew and aeroplane with outstanding safety record.

Means. Motive. Opportunity.

The odds on an act of terrorism have shortened dramatically.

[clayne]

I'm not sure what kind of screening happens to bags internally post checkin but I know from 30-40 of my own flights within Malaysia and KLIA outbound (internationally) that typically checked in luggage is pre-screened by MAHB upon entering the check in area. This is typically a larger carry on style scanning machine (rapidscan) and on exit the bags receive a sticker from MAHB indicating the bag has been scanned. Carry on luggage does not need to go through this scanning. Upon checking in the bag while getting a boarding pass the airline agent will look for this sticker and if not found will require the passenger to go get it scanned at the entrance again. Now if the checked in bags are not rescanned post-checkin then there are serious holes here as the stickers are easy to manipulate such that they could be transferred from one bag to another, or the scanned bag reopened and "resealed." Additionally it's not difficult to get an unscanned bag into the checkin area (although this varies by airport, but commonly just enter via the exit) and then transfer a sticker. The ticketing agents aren't exactly checking the stickers in detail either. However, all of this hinges on checked in bags not being rescanned yet another time before being loaded onto the plane. Based on the number of glaring holes apparent it would seem they most likely are scanned post-conveyor and the pre-screening gates are mostly superfluous/feel-good.

That being said, my gut feeling is some kind of catastrophic event in-flight and I'm not so sure how much I believe terrorism/bombing is behind it. I only throw out the bag details because one never knows these days.

[RetiredTooEarly]

Pretty rarely, it is certainly not the norm as the only frequency "available" is 121.5 MHz, being an emergency channel and chatter is not encouraged on it!

Other VHF and HF channels are maybe used to pass on a position report or at the request of ATC, but to answer your question, 99% NOT DONE,

[Anti Skid On]

Mickjoebill asked Was a "liquid ban" in force at the first security point on this flight?



It is some time since I last flew through KLIA, but when I used a domestic MAS service there was screening before boarding, and, again before immigration. However, it doesn't preclude someone from another location coming in. I guess they'll be checking the tickets to the stolen passports.

On a side note, I have twice had my credit card 'cloned' in that region, and both times the card was used to purchase flights.

[Old Boeing Driver]

Can you post a link to that story. I don't see it on Al Jazeera.

[barrel_owl]

Yahoo Malaysia quotes Todd Curtis, former Boeing's safety engineer and 777 expert:

At this early stage, we're focusing on the facts that we don't know," said Todd Curtis, a former safety engineer with Boeing who worked on its 777 jumbo jets and is now director of the Airsafe.com Foundation.

If there was a minor mechanical failure — or even something more serious like the shutdown of both of the plane's engines — the pilots likely would have had time to radio for help. The lack of a call "suggests something very sudden and very violent happened," said William Waldock, who teaches accident investigation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz.

It initially appears that there was either an abrupt breakup of the plane or something that led it into a quick, steep dive. Some experts even suggested an act of terrorism or a pilot purposely crashing the jet.

"Either you had a catastrophic event that tore the airplane apart, or you had a criminal act," said Scott Hamilton, managing director of aviation consultancy Leeham Co. "It was so quick and they didn't radio."

Read the full article here:
Why Malaysia Airlines jet might have disappeared (http://my.news.yahoo.com/why-malaysia-airlines-jet-might-disappeared-213133681.html)

[Australopithecus]

In the scenario of a flight deck invasion, why would a perpetrator bent on plunging an aircraft into the sea care about transponders/acars/radio? There's nothing that any ground agency could do about it, nor would disabling change the facts nor would it hide the act. So why? Who would benefit?

It would be astonishing if the passport thing turns out to be a red herring. With regard to the number of passengers flying under false pretenses: what happened in the innocent 80's is hardly a template for what should be common today, especially post-9/11.