Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

[A Squared]

Originally Posted by anotheruser

With all that speculation, I'm wondering, couldn't the cause of the accident (if it was one) simply be a human glitch?

I mean, we've had pilots
- accidently shutting down the engines instead of retracting the gear
- accidently setting the parking brake inflight, causing all tyres to burst on landing
- accidently selecting a lower flap setting instead of a higher one on approach, causing the aircraft to stall
- accidently trimming the rudder to the point the autopilot disconnects, causing the aircraft to flip over

Why does it have to be terrorism, a UFO, a meteorite? It could simply have been a pilot accidently pushing the wrong button for no apparent reason ...

I don't know of any airplane 777 or not which has a button when accidentally pushed causes it to break all contact and disappear off the face of the earth. One would expect that such a button would have a big red guard over it. Maybe with a printed warning too.

[ntq1947]

from BBC News Asia

... Commander William Marks from the US Seventh Fleet, which is taking part in the search, says he expects the plane's flight recorders to be floating in the water.
"In calm seas, if there were a soccer ball [football] or a basketball floating in the water, the radar could pick it up. They [flight recorders] typically have a radio beacon and so for example our P3 [radar] - if they are flying within a certain range of that - will pick up that radio beacon. We have not yet picked up anything, but that's typically what those black boxes contain." ...


The sentence in bold letters, is incorrect, as far as my knowledge is concerned.

[xxzz123]

something is very wrong

By now any flight deck, accident investigation, terror prevention or ATC staff will now be very suspicious about the last 24 hours lack of developments. This simply does not happen in todays environment, A/C hit TOC at 35, no conclusive radar signature, no wreckage, conflicting data, relatively shallow seas, someone somewhere is holding back the tragic fate of this 777.

[Backseat Dane]

1) Catastrophic in-flight breakup due to foul play (e.g. bomb/missile): seems very unlikely such an event would exactly coincide with the change of heading.

2) Catastrophic in-flight breakup due to mid-air collision: possibly related to a change of heading but lack of any report of other aircraft being involved appears to rule this out.

3) Hijacking either by passengers or crew: the planned change of heading could have been used together with a disabling of the electronic systems to conceal a further re-routing.

4) Aircraft malfunction and/or pilot error: the change of heading could have been part of or have triggered a causal chain of events that brought down the airliner. Probably there's a few scenarios here such as, for example, the turn could have put forces on the repaired wing that caused it to fail.

It seems to me that scenarios 3 and, especially 4 are the most likely ones. Any other ideas what the coinciding change of heading and last contact might mean?

Re: 1) A bomb rigged with an accelerometer/compass trigger (essentially a smartphone would do it, programmed as some sort of inertial navigator) plotting the course of the aircraft - assuming the same flight files the same flight plan day in, day out - and then set to go off at this turn, because the perpetrator knows that at that point of the flight the AC will have reached cruising altitude and be somewhere over the sea?

A timer set to go off at XX o'clock would be a far more simple approach, agreed, if someone was plotting to bomb the AC. So just speculating.

[Stanley11]

With all that speculation, I'm wondering, couldn't the cause of the accident (if it was one) simply be a human glitch?

Of course pilots fail. For example, call on the wrong frequency, fail to turn on transponder, but that usually will be rectified.
This case is truly bizarre and baffles many experts. I'm sure by now many experts, beyond this forum, had contributed and brainstormed to figure out what could've happened and based on the probabilities and resources, chased those leads.

[Deaf]

Can someone point to a credible primary source that in fact there is any search activity in the Malacca Straits ? Just because the aircraft are BASED in Butterworth (on the Malacca coast) does not mean they are searching there. I can imagine the apron at Kota Baharu getting rather cluttered, so a base 200km away might be more suitable for the long-range P-3s.

Why they are at RMAF Butterworth is because:

"The base is home to:
RAAF 324 Expeditionary Combat Support Squadron (324 ECSS)
RAAF 92 Wing Detachment Alpha"

RMAF Base Butterworth - Royal Australian Air Force

[A Squared]

Originally Posted by philipat

Given the likely track of the aircraft, if they are searching the Malacca Straits, why then are they not searching the land of Peninsular Malaysia?

Do you know that they are not?

[Teal]

@A Squared
Besides, it looks like nobody really knows whose P-3s they are or what they're doing.

edit: I see a later posts suggest that they are US P-3s searching for MH370

Old news (yesterday) - Australia offered two of its RAAF Orion PC3s to assist in the search - No Cookies | thetelegraph.com.au

These are probably already based at Butterworth (adjacent the Straits of Malacca) where the RAAF has had a presence since the 1950s.

[Stanley11]

This flight departed KUL and was heading for PEK.

I am sick of reading people's posts on here who are quoting incorrect information.

Sir, I think you're mistaken. IF the flight was somehow commandeered, the origin or destination of the original flight becomes a moot point. They will go wherever they want (fuel permitting). Of course the original flight path would go into disguising the intent but I think you get my point.

[Ulight]

Potential wreckage location

With location of potential wreckage spotted in Vietnamese paper it would put MH370 on M765 meaning if they took a right turn at IGARI onto M765 and then kept going, that would be roughly on that path.

Putting it out there, could a 777 could glide about 30 minutes from 35,000 ft as if engines went out at IGARI that would mean just over 200 nm @ ~450 kts which is around that spot?

[KeyPilot]

Length of time to locate wreckage

There are conflicting posts in this thread about the length of time to locate wreckage in AF447 - which is (at this stage) the obvious comparable incident.

Some have said it was several days, some the following day.

I have just looked at the BEA accident report, and they seem to say wreckage was found only after 5 days (6-Jun vs accident date of 1-Jun), although it is not clear as they do not make explicit reference to FIRST wreckage sighted.

Can anyone corroborate this?

[valvanuz]

Malacca straits

The straits of Malacca is one of the worlds busiest shipping lane with hundreds of ships transiting daily, not counting local traffic, ferries and fishermen. If a large plane were to crash, there would be many witnesses and debris would be spotted within hours.

[philipat]

"Do you know that they are not?"


If they were they would have reported it. Makes them look like they are covering all the bases.

[Calldepartures]

The aircraft appears to be off course.. Speculate as to why this may be but I fear it can only be an intentional act given the lack of all communication. (Both verbal and digital)

[PAXboy]

With no apologies to the conspiracy people:

History tells us that the simplest explanation is the most likely.

[lurker999]

the Australian P3Cs took off from Darwin this morning to join the search.

[xxzz123]

something is very wrong

We can go around in circles for another 48.hours but this aircraft can not possibly have disappeared. This is relatively busy airspace thouroughly covered by Mil and Civ radar. If the 777 simply fell out of the sky some authority either knows where it happened or if she went off course before the event. Either way we need to simplify and stop speculating. Stop discussing what may have happened and start looking at where the 777 could now be nearly 48.hours into the incident.

[andrasz]

I would likely to remind everyone that the last VERIFIED change of heading was from 015 to 040 a minute before transponder signal was lost, corresponding to the intended flight path.

The possibility of a return was hinted by the chief of the Malaysian Air Force early yesterday, but has been downplayed and unconfirmed ever since. Any scenario based on this information is pure speculation at this stage.

[Eclectic]

MH370 did not break up or crash at the point where the Flightradar24 feed ends.
Otherwise something would have been found by now.
So it kept flying with the transponder off.
But why no mobile phone contact?
1) Too far from any cells.
2) Passengers incapacitated by depressurisation.
The latter theory would fit in with the garbled radio transmission.
It would be interesting to know the cause of such a decompression event.
Bungled Hijack attempt? This might also explain the transponder stopping transmission.
Structural failure from the wing repair?
Small explosion?

So where is the 777 now?
If it had crashed over land the ELT would have activated and been seen by satellites. This is why they are not searching the landmasses.

So it is at the bottom of the sea, where the ELT transmissions can't be seen.
But the reality is that it could be anywhere in a radius of well over 1,000 miles.

[rog747]

philbky comets

re The similarity to the Comet 1 YP accident off Elba is in some ways striking. For all our modern comms and tracking equipment, once a return/downlink has gone, it's gone and what happens to the airframe and all conveyed therein is as clear in 2014 as it was in 1954 until someone like a fisherman comes up with a report of seeing the incident, and that could be days, or genuine wreckage/bodies surface.

agreed philbky

also sister ship comet YY also took off from Rome CIA going to JNB some months later and went missing off stromboli and hardly any thing was found