The altitude of the plane would affect the moonset time for those aboard, no?

It would make the moonset about 10 minutes later. More than I would have thought.

The BBC has learned/understands is well known as shorthand for "seen/read/heard elsewhere" and it is a semantic point but most people will ill assume wrongly they are breaking some news.

Lithium Batteries Theory
 

MH370 theory (based on my own opinion about breaking news regarding lithium batteries onboard the jet's cargo area)....

Freescale employees (~20 onboard) were carrying cargo with them that included Lithium batteries for demo purposes (see previous fires caused by such batteries including a UPS 777).

Upon learning of the fire, the jet changed course back towards Malaysia, explaining why the pilots flew towards the northern tip of Malaysia (closest land) instead of back to Kuala Lampur.

The fire resulted in a gradual loss of pressure which caused Hypoxia but did not bring down the aircraft, and simultaneously slowly melted the communication devices (explaining why one was shut down and then another 14 minutes later), but did not affect the engines (explaining why the engines continued to "ping" satellites for hours). The jet kept cruising westward as the pilots were unconscious until it eventually crashed into the Indian Ocean.

You heard it here first.

UnderDriven
 

Only by a few minutes. If you run the numbers for the day and location through astronomical software it looks like the Moon was over 20 degrees below the western horizon at the time and place of last confirmed contact.

Math Gurus Needed
 

Just for the hell of it this old Navy Piloto from half a century ago fired up Microsoft Flight Simulator FSX and started a flight from KL to Beijing, the same one as MH370. Upon arrival at IGARI reset the autopilot to VAMPI thence Gival then to IGREX and let her fly. This route made no sense. Backtracking from VAMPI to GIVAL??? Who does that? It is more like a mathematical Markov Random Walk. So we may need to harness the mathematicians among us; graduate level of course, to solve the future whereabouts of MH370 from the present last datum by a Markov Chain Stochastic Analysis. Time has erased most of my high level math learned in Engineering School. Let the games begin. John Nash, where are you now that we really need you?

Let me ask a question of those who see the sim as completely innocent.

Suppose a plane disappeared under odd circumstances such as this one did. After the disappearance, it was found that the pilot had a very elaborate and expensive sim setup hidden in his basement which nobody knew about.

Then would you find it at least a little suspicious?

Pings
 

Does anyone know if the signals that Inmarsat picked up are 'pinging' an identity related to the airframe number or the engine number(s)?

Flight Sim
 

But people did know about it. He put photos on the Internet. Hiding in plain sight perhaps, but it is not true that "nobody knew about it."

Hey - it wasn't "hidden" - he seemed pretty open about showing it off.

re # 3407 Underdriven
 

While apparent moonset or sunrise are indeed a function of YOUR altitude to within a few minutes, I would suggest that that whole issue is a red herring

As a passenger - tourist with only a few long overseas trips at various times day and night ,etc IMHO- to believe anyone at night in the passenger section and absent that little screen display of route could notice stars- or even be aware of a gentle coordinated turn via an autopilot dial or a partly trained non pilot is almost absurd. Eyes open or closed. Now if a high banked turn was made, there would be a slight change ( depending on a coordination) in g's and if during the day some visual clues. But overwater- at night- unless one was fixated on A STAR OR SIMILAR, one would be clueless as to chan ge in direction or slight chane ( less than several thousand d feet in altitude ).

\And as a passenger - so what!!

So what remains ?

1) deliberate change in normal broadcast of transponder and other radio comm
2) delilberate change in course

3) no obvious landing places yet found or discovered

4) last track timing may be due to pinger schedule

5) and over a deep part of ocean

Above are reasonable (IMO) descriptions of available- somewhat factual/credible information released.

And they seem to poInt to A) no accident B) deliberate actions by ??

Hopefully that dampens all the rest - decompression, cell phones, satcom, flight simulators, loose oxygen bottles, hypoxia, and actions by residents of area 51.:ugh::ugh:

Some passengers will notice, particularly if there is low turbulence (as in this case). I was a passenger on an Afriqiyah flight out of Dakar, and was woken by an unexpected change of direction and cabin pressure, as was a second passenger. It turned out to be for a medical emergency, but for quite a while I wondered whether we had been kidnapped.

The plot (which I can see was deleted) was made based on this piece of news from Reuters.
It is entirely up to you how much credence you want to put in it:

Exclusive: Radar data suggests missing Malaysia plane deliberately flown way off course - sources

I agree in full as to the complete nonsense of that theory. But, if I am allowed to ask: which is the "known flight path" of MAS370?

DID you really seen his cockpit pictures?

Few toys from Saitek, computer, few LCD, nothing more. Nothing really expensive. And nothing hidden - as he posted pictures on web by himself.

Just another childish conspiracy theory based on REALLY twisted facts. :=

The observer on the oil platform, did he state what bearing or direction from his position the event he saw occurred ?

Unusual seismic activity
 

Newbie here. I have been a silent watcher for 10 years, appreciating the input from the pros. I tried to post this earlier, when it happened but mods said no.

There's an unusual seismic activity SE in the vicinity of the planes supposed direction, (based on reurter's data).
M5.5 - 111km E of Mohean, India 2014-03-14 13:38:06 UTC

Being both a plane nerd and a geological nerd this looks odd. Its away from a fault line by a good margin. And unusually large for this region. Gt my brain thinking....

I have to ask the same as GvonSprout:

are those pings attributable to an individual source? Yes or no. And I would bet that this was the very first question to Inmarsat. And if they said yes the follow-up question was "prove it".

The rather random course plotted in a graph earlier could also just be the coincidential return of 'pings' from other aicraft systems doing the same at an expected location.

So the question remains, same ping for all or individual pings?

The answer = Yes - a few pages back the protocol was explained.

Yes, I read your post and Reuters' article too. And I am obviously aware about all the claims that put the aircraft flying West, pinging satellites for four or five hours, flying over the Indian Ocean or even landing in some remote Andaman Islands airport. But, to the best of my knowledge, there is zero conclusive evidence so far.
I only wouldn't call that a "known flight path".

ACARS Operation
 

I've been doing some research myself. Not sure if this might help others:

http://www.universal-radio.com/catal...s/acarsweb.pdf