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.

Post 357
 

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

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...

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

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"

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."

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.

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....

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

At best it looks a bit like emulsified heavy oil rather than aviation fuel. But agree with others, looks more like bio.

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

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:

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

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

But perhaps some insight.

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.

@ Ivanbogus - Uncontained Failure - Structural Failure
 

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....

LegallyBlonde,
 

It has been said on this 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/...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/...roi1-23466.jpg

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

DB64, talk about oxymoron?

Potentially "diplomatically insensitive" post
 

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

@ 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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.