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Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

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Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

Old 16th Mar 2014, 00:11
  #4201 (permalink)  
 
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I don't think of one minute any state actors were involved deliberately, the stakes would be too high, and for what?

Would still argue a catastrophic failure of some kind disabling some buses, could be that disabled the crew (hypoxic or otherwise), and some poor (clueless) bugger attempting to fly the a/c via the MCP, but ending up in the middle of nowhere.

As for all this leaked information, I suggest it is treated with some discrimination, a lot of it may simply be found later to be 'incorrect'.

I'm very much still with the theory this was accidental.
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Old 16th Mar 2014, 00:15
  #4202 (permalink)  
 
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Yeah, YEAH! I remember 777s taking part in SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) missions alongside some F-15s from the 48th Fighter Wing a few years ago, flying real low n' stuff
There is no reason why a skilful aviator shouldn't be able to fly an airliner fairly close to the ground.

Here's a KC-135 flying very low. And I am not suggesting this 777 was doing this. But even at 1000ft, chances of radar detection are significantly reduced.

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Old 16th Mar 2014, 00:16
  #4203 (permalink)  
 
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Orge said,

The one thing that strikes me odd about all the talk of hijack (either to destroy the plane in flight or take it intact) is that no-one has claimed responsibility. If you were a terrorist mastermind and wanted to gain from having pulled off this undertaking, would you not be phoning the local media and making it known by now?

With the way the internet is used on a daily basis to broadcast everyones opinion, not one reference has appears in any news broadcast regarding "we did it"!
I think you are looking at it all wrong - what is more terrifying than day 9 and we are still not even sure it was a terrorist attack, let alone who is responsible and what their ultimate goal is?

If this was a terrorist attack, they were unbelievably successful regardless if they had another goal they never achieved. After all, the #1 goal of Terrorism is Terror!

Also, taking responsibility actually happens less than we think, and sometimes it happens much later in time. Plus, someone we don't know did take responsibility. That leaves 3 possibilities - they did and we don't believe them, they will eventually after we start figuring out who might have done it anyway, or they have no intention to.

The no intention to is especially valid if this was a dry run, and not the actual eventual goal. THAT is the really scary aspect in my mind.
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Old 16th Mar 2014, 00:16
  #4204 (permalink)  
 
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I think the time is long past to lock this thread, until such a time that either the airplane is found, or evidence of an irrefutable nature is discovered. Some of this is bordering on libel. Certainly some of what is being said here and in other places may be putting the families of these airmen in danger.
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Old 16th Mar 2014, 00:17
  #4205 (permalink)  
 
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I do hate to add fuel to what I already don't believe is the case myself, but...

olasek says

People committing suicide are not exactly in their most lucid frame of mind, why would you then exclude certain behaviours?
In all honesty, you might be under an extremely lucid frame if ones intentions were to...

a) ditch the plane where it is unlikely to find and completely figure out what exactly happened

...allowing for...

b) insurance claim for your family (as the Malaysian Government has mentioned multiple times, oddly enough)

Suicide is likely not covered under the claim, but dying at the hands of terrorists will allow for both the insurance claim and a big lawsuit.

I repeat, I don't think that is what happened, but would make sense
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Old 16th Mar 2014, 00:17
  #4206 (permalink)  
 
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Speed of Sound says

And does anyone seriously believe that £120 million worth of gold would be carried on a scheduled passenger flight?
...not without heavily armed guards escorting it

And one would think such escorts would be able to do at least something in a hijack, honestly.
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Old 16th Mar 2014, 00:19
  #4207 (permalink)  
 
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Am I correct in saying ACARS turned off 10 (?) or so minutes before transponder? If so, why? What would ACARS transmit that you didn't want known while still appearing ops normal to ATC?

This has been carefully planned by someone. This detail may be significant.

Would ACARS transmit decompression?

If you were going to decompress the cabin, the ideal time to do it would be near or soon after TOC. You would want rapid incapacitation, so not from departure (plus you presumably need time to somehow exclude 2nd pilot). But you would also want some time when alarm would not be raised and so pax wouldn't try to interfere. At or near TOC when pax used to cabin climbing seems logical.

Then after this was accomplished, turn of transponder and disappear.

This scenario would also avoid any calls from alarmed pax when crossing land.

Last edited by slats11; 16th Mar 2014 at 00:22. Reason: Typo
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Old 16th Mar 2014, 00:20
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And one would think such escorts would be able to do at least something in a hijack, honestly.
Unless of course, they did not know they were hijacked? Or perhaps, as has been postulated a few times here, the PAX air was turned off or cabin allowed to depressurise
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Old 16th Mar 2014, 00:21
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Just facts. You follow with any logic:

Long standing political drama exists in Malaysia centered around very controversial opposition leader Anwar_Ibrahim - trumped up sodomy charges, reversal, etc. On day of flight March 7 his acquital was overturned, to great consternation of his many vocal supporters, who hate current govt.

According to UK paper, Captain Zaharie was a huge supporter of Ibrahim and his opposition party.

Only Zaharie would have senior skills to perpetrate the hiding of MH370, the long trip, announcements to calm the PAX, tactics to throw off the authorities as long as possible.

To embarass the current Malaysian govt with hours and hours of drawn out suicide creating what we say today, would be a possible motive and make more sense than anything else associated with this tragedy.

Is the eccentric flight-simulated divorced pissed-off Captain Zaharie capable of such an evil adventure? You be the judge!
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Old 16th Mar 2014, 00:22
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New twist

The UK Daily Mail (Sunday edition) is reporting that the capt had attended the court hearing of a former deputy PM of Malaysia the same day that he took control of MH370. He apparently has been a staunch and vociferous supporter of the accused (of sodomy in a long standing political battle).

Next, MH370 had made a quick climb to outer space practically (to knock crew out and probably FO sent out of cabin (can captain survive on non-pressurized O2 alone?). Following that, a turn was made with a descent to escape radar. All this at a point of ATC handoever (the black window). Further (?deliberate) turns at Nav points, pings upto 7 hours flying time.

The theory here is that the captain was incensed that his friend was awarded a 5 year jail sentence. It follows that the capt is looking for revenge. He is apparently divorced although wife lives in the same house.

I shall leave it to the imagination as to what the captain's intention is (or probably was), in this scenario.

Loud bang reported by ground witnesses on beach near Kota Bharu and oil rig worker observing a "fire" - these may be accounted for by the high altitude where the air density is decreased and may cause a change in the engines to backfire - any engineers care to comment?

Last edited by brika; 16th Mar 2014 at 00:30. Reason: addition of last para
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Old 16th Mar 2014, 00:23
  #4211 (permalink)  
 
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Interesting theory Slats. Yes, why turn the ACARS off first? It would transmit maintenance messages regarding depressurisation.
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Old 16th Mar 2014, 00:23
  #4212 (permalink)  
 
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fireflybob

That's how the USN found the sub Scorpion in the late '60s. Admittedly, the group used were experts in various fields pertinent to sub construction and operations. See Blind Man's Bluff book.

The total tonnage of bizarre and uninformed ideas expressed by members who have fewer than 10 posts and join dates later than Feb 2014 is mind boggling and rather a waste of PPRUNE's bandwidth. OTOH, posts by experts in arcane fields of SATCOM, Electronics and cellphones is much needed and always welcome when these things happen.

FYI for the newcomers: you can't jettison cargo in civil planes; transponders, like many others pieces of kit, have OFF switches for good reasons, the US MIL is not as all-seeing and all-knowing as you'd like and hate.; militaries of the world can't intercept unknown "targets" as they mostly are 8-midnight operations, at best. The US Mil were caught on 9/11 and so would most others militaries. The Russians had their Mathias Rust, remember.

GF
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Old 16th Mar 2014, 00:24
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Sheep Guts says

They must continue searching the South China Sea they don't have enough evidence to not stop.
What evidence is there of it being there?

The absolutely only thing that says it is possibly at the location of its last call is that it was once at that location - that is it, absolutely nothing else indicates it is there.

The evidence that it isn't there is extreme though - including the fact that they have had 14 countries with Ships, Planes and Satellites searching this very tiny and unbelievably shallow area for 8 days without finding even a single seat cushion.

That alone should scream "uhm, it probably isn't here guys" without even having to go into all the physical and witness reports indicating it turned West.
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Old 16th Mar 2014, 00:28
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Someone said that they would move 4.5 t of gold in a 7.5 t truck.

The max load of a 7.5t truck is 3t.
I seriously doubt that anyone who has just stolen £120 million worth of gold would worry about weight restrictions.
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Old 16th Mar 2014, 00:31
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ACARS down before transponder

One of the last ACARS Messages transmitted by AF447 concerned cabin pressure, IIRC external altitude becoming lower than cabin altitude.

It makes me sick thinking about it:

- Turn off ACARS
- Then depressurize
- Wait 12 minutes until cabin emergency O2 is used up
- Turn off transponder
- Zoom climb to what is possible, on topping out there will be less than 1g so it can be somewhat higher than what is in the spec
- now return, over land no cell phone calls will be made
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Old 16th Mar 2014, 00:32
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Slats and Captain Kremen -
Yes, re ACARS, that is what MSM has been reporting.

Data transmission system on MH370 deliberately disabled - tech - 15 March 2014 - New Scientist

On 11 March it emerged that the Boeing 777's diagnostic maintenance data messaging system, the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), had sent two bursts of data at both take off and during the plane's climb to cruise altitude. While this was the first sign that investigators had at least some forensic flight data to go on, no further ACARS reports were transmitted.

Now the investigation team thinks they know why.
"Based on new satellite information, we can say with a high degree of certainty that ACARS was disabled just before the aircraft reached the East coast of peninsular Malaysia. Shortly afterwards, near the border between Malaysian and Vietnamese air traffic control, the aircraft's transponder was switched off," Razak says.
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Old 16th Mar 2014, 00:32
  #4217 (permalink)  
 
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Battery fire, taking out essential busses first, crew incapacitated by insidious fumes and confusion (thousands of hours and nothing has ever gone wrong for them), jet randomly deadsticks until crashes in remote location in Indian ocean? Cabin crew don't enter cockpit because of muslim culture and knowledge that pilots are 'playboys' and may be 'busy'? Crash locator fails to function. Third world air forces (Malaysian, Thai) culturally incapable of responding to or taking seriously radar returns of unknown aircraft.
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Old 16th Mar 2014, 00:34
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The UK Daily Mail (Sunday edition) is reporting that the capt had attended the court hearing of a former deputy PM of Malaysia the same day that he took control of MH370. He apparently has been a staunch and vociferous supporter of the accused (of sodomy in a long standing political battle).

Next, MH370 had made a quick climb to outer space practically (to knock crew out and probably FO sent out of cabin (can captain survive on non-pressurized O2 alone?). Following that, a turn was made with a descent to escape radar. All this at a point of ATC handoever (the black window). Further (?deliberate) turns at Nav points, pings upto 7 hours flying time.

The theory here is that the captain was incensed that his friend was awarded a 5 year jail sentence. It follows that the capt is looking for revenge. He is apparently divorced although wife lives in the same house.

I shall leave it to the imagination as to what the captain's intention is (or probably was), in this scenario.
I have mentioned before a weird feeling about the 'Captain's friend', who opened his conversation in two interviews with the same prepared line about how he knows the pilot. ("because of our common interest in social and politic activism")

He talks way too much about the flight simulator.

He is the only person who has come forward desperate to talk and I will say it now...I think he is going to become a spokesman on behalf of the Captain...we'll see.
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Old 16th Mar 2014, 00:37
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The one thing that strikes me odd about all the talk of hijack (either to destroy the plane in flight or take it intact) is that no-one has claimed responsibility. If you were a terrorist mastermind and wanted to gain from having pulled off this undertaking, would you not be phoning the local media and making it known by now?
If it was a terrorist suicide mission, then I agree. Associates of the guilty parties would have made a statement by now. A suicide of an individual might not be revealed until the personnal effects of the crew and passengers have been searched.

If it was an attempt to take the PAX alive for ransom, it might be some time before they can be moved to secured locations. And if it was intended to take the aircraft, the perps will want to keep things quiet until they use it for some unknown Phase 2 of their plan.
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Old 16th Mar 2014, 00:38
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Peter Chong


vs

BBC News - Malaysia Airlines MH370: Pilot 'not behind' disappearance

Someone tell me why he has prepared his speech?

Sorry but this I think is seriously relevant...he makes exactly the same comment:

"On the flight simulator...you can create situations."
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