Perhaps it was done surreptitiously, being an uncommon action, the other pilot did not noticed or questioned. Only after few minutes, having incapacitated or killed the other pilot, xponder was shut down and the rest of the actions took place.

It's hard to get into people's minds. No matter how wholesome, intelligent, kind, a loving parent, loyal, dedicated and competent worker can be: For whatever reasons, one day the employee can snap and come off the rails.

There was a time when big jets had Flight Engineers and when two (2) crew members would ALWAYS be in the cockpit when another visited the Lav or galley. Maybe it's time to have a 3RD pilot in the cockpit, not just for safety, but for sanity. :ooh:

Agreed ANA. Let's hope they find it. The search area this weekend has grown way too large. In fact not searchable due to not enough assets.
They need to run live test flight as I've said before, with a B777 fly on same tracks as shown by Military radars and see what results they get with Ground radar stations and satellite reception and returns. I'm sure they are doing something like this now and verifying their data.

It should be but does not follow that it is. As argued by Glueball it does not follow that an active radar unit is actually operating with an operational watch staring intently at the screens.

As pointed out, the track was of non-threatening nature and going the 'wrong way' for the lost aircraft.

The inactive radar units would probably be at no higher alert than 2 hours and that presupposed a highly motivated unit and it would be wrong to compare a highly advanced, and vulnerable, air defence system on a high alert posture with Malaysia or Thailand where there is no significant threat. As for driving airliners in to buildings; is that a realistic threat for a Muslim country to consider?

No, I would argue that the majority of developing world 'air defence systems' are vanity forces and not first rate units such as you would expect in countries that face a significant threat.

and you are surprised?

Smugglers, yes, military threat, no as not many forces have a 24 hour capability.

Can't argue with that, but it presupposes the political will to maintain a highly effective and fully operational 24 hour air policing operation.

To all those who declare that there is never a reason to turn off a transponder in flight.

I have turned of my transponder in a civil transport type in flight.
It had stopped working and I happened to have both an engineer on board and a spare box on board.

We asked ATC if we could take up a PPOS hold rather than land back on. We turned it off, swapped it out and turned it back on.

Now this is an unlikely situation in a civvy airliner, but if there is one reason to do it, there are likely many more.

NOT TRUE. All the aircraft I am familiar with have wording equivalent to:

so busbars are only de-powered when source is unknown and an immediate landing is not available.

Why ACARS first?
 

Sure:

-- You're the bad guy. The a/c is at TOC, so it's time to get to work hiding.
-- After the TOC message is sent, shut down ACARS first, since you're still in Malaysian ATC radar coverage.
-- A few minutes later, once the handoff to Vietnam's ATC is attempted by Malaysian ATC, you go further dark by turning off the transponder(s).
-- You're now invisible to ATC secondary radar, the handoff was never completed, and you've bought yourself some extra time since neither Malaysia nor Vietnam can see the a/c (except for a primary target).
-- Do whatever voodoo it is you need to do.

Here's what I wrote:


Here's what you wrote:

What is the difference.:ugh:

DC, if Vietnamese ATS gets no reply, it will eventually start a SAR phase, as it probably did. If being voodoo, it would be far better to wait until after contact with Vietnamese ATS, that way you would only be missed after the next reporting point, not immediately.

Imo, this is a genius strategic planning!

AMSA is waiting ?
 

According to Aust media, AMSA has received no request from Malaysia as of Sunday, to start searching the southern Indian Ocean 'arc'. Tony Abbott is offering to help (with RAAF P3's).

The difference is you add it as an afterthought whereas it's the first investigative action in the procedures. It shows clearly the reason electrical equipment must be able to be electrically isolated individually and therefore addresses the original point.

The latest speculation (Daily Mail) suggests that Captain Shah was behind this, given his political obsessions, sympathy for the Malayan opposition leader whom he'd just watched being jailed, along with a picture of him wearing a tee shirt with the slogan "Democracy is Dead." Oh, and he has a home simulator. Let's go along with this for a moment.

He's secured the flight deck, turned off the transponder(s), and turned off the pax oxygen rendering passengers harmless or dead. Now what? He has the fuel, and is now in a position to aim his ship and do something somewhere to shock the world, as happened on 9/11. So should he fly to the Northwest, or Southwest, and land the plane, and then do it? No sense in that. The time is now. But he doesn't do it . . .

Which is where the theory falls down. We are all theorists now. Every one of us, governments and people. An answer had better be forthcoming eventually, because it is driving us nuts. The only people made happy are Hollywood screen-writers, free to write a bunch of stories to fanciful conclusions.

I hope this doesn't get lost in the spotters conspiracy theories on here. But if you go back to

this article here: it says in black and white that MAS had information that the plane landed in Nanning.

Who told them that? And why didn't they dismiss it like they dismissed the "possible air turn back" as far back as 9 March,

here,

possible oil slicks,

possible debris fields on the 10th and 12th, a "seafloor event" at 2:55am on 8 April.

Why hasn't anyone asked them about Nanning? And most of all, WHERE DID THEY GET THAT INFORMATION FROM? They're first reports said radar contact was lost at 0220 local, quickly corrected to 0121 when they decided to hide their primary radar data. Fair enough, but why then did they leave six navies searching for almost a week in the South China Sea, when they knew from the get go that that 9M-MRO was not there?

I'm not trying to put the blame on some night shift military radar operator not wondering what that blip was at FL350, then FL450, then 230, then 295. If he missed it then it probably represents a culture that filters down from the top. If he reported it (which is likely considering the minister's two 180s before arriving back at the same place we were at before he was woken up on the 8th) then I shudder to think what else is known but but must be kept from the rest of us. Mr Minister, you had your own primary radar plots but because you were asleep now you want 25 other countries to share their primary radar data with you?

Considering where we're at now they may just do that. I just hope at the least you lose your job, regardless of whether or not we recover the 237 people on board. Besides that, I would hope you're police force would have searched the pilots' homes before that stage-managed search we saw on Saturday.

They knew it was a hijack from the first morning, just hoping it would be found crashed before they had to admit it. Sad to say, and not likely, but now I'm hoping it was some rogue action by the crew and the passengers are waiting for a ransom somewhere.

ACARS manual shutdown
 

@Ian_W

Precisely right!

ACARS log-off from the cockpit is a reasonable interpretation that fits two stated facts:

1. cessation of normal ACARS data
2. multiple hourly SAT data link connections with no buffered data to send

For those in the catastrophic failure camp - I haven't seen ACARS - LOGGED OFF in the various emergency procedures stated here so far.

When/if I have smoke in the flight deck, I'm going to know right away which system is offending? You sure about that?

I'm going far, far out on a limb here and pretty much say that unless it's clear it's a coffee maker, oven, or something not in the FD, I'm not going to have time, nor want to waste time analyzing which system it is, then waste more time considering how to do that ("where is that darn VHF3 circuit breaker again?!"). Rather, I'm going to depower busses PER THE CHECKLIST, and wait to see if smoke decreases or not. All the while running toward the ERA or nearest airport.

To add to my point, an airplane like a 777 has avionics in the bay. Most panels in the flight deck are merely control heads. To try and determine from which LRU/bussbar the smoke is emanating is virtually impossible.

I hope this doesn't get lost in the spotters conspiracy theories on here. But if you go back to

this article here: it says in black and white that MAS had information that the plane landed in Nanning.

Who told them that? And why didn't they dismiss it like they dismissed the "possible air turn back" as far back as 9 March,

here,

possible oil slicks,

possible debris fields on the 10th and 12th, a "seafloor event" at 2:55am on 8 April.

Why hasn't anyone asked them about Nanning? And most of all, WHERE DID THEY GET THAT INFORMATION FROM? They're first reports said radar contact was lost at 0220 local, quickly corrected to 0121 when they decided to hide their primary radar data. Fair enough, but why then did they leave six navies searching for almost a week in the South China Sea, when they knew from the get go that that 9M-MRO was not there?

I'm not trying to put the blame on some night shift military radar operator not wondering what that blip was at FL350, then FL450, then 230, then 295. If he missed it then it probably represents a culture that filters down from the top. If he reported it (which is likely considering the minister's two 180s before arriving back at the same place we were at before he was woken up on the 8th) then I shudder to think what else is known but but must be kept from the rest of us. Mr Minister, you had your own primary radar plots but because you were asleep now you want 25 other countries to share their primary radar data with you?

Considering where we're at now they may just do that. I just hope at the least you lose your job, regardless of whether or not we recover the 237 people on board. Besides that, I would hope you're police force would have searched the pilots' homes before that stage-managed search we saw on Saturday.

You guys knew it was a hijack from the first morning, just hoping it would be found crashed before they had to admit it. Sad to say, and not likely, but now I'm hoping it was some rogue action by the crew and the passengers are waiting for a ransom somewhere.

The theory does not fall down. Maybe he did not manage to complete whatever the plan was. Or he did not had a precise plan at all. Maybe someone was able to enter the cockpit and a struggle ensued, crashing the airplan. Or it flew a long way with nobody at the controls. We just don't know. What we know, with much probability, is that this has been caused by intentional actions, unfortunately both pilots are prime suspects.

The last ping received was on the red arc. The aircraft was not necessarily on the arc prior to that time.

The aircraft was not necessarily at the western-most end of the arc at that time. The western end of the arc is probably where the pings would have been seen by next satellite west (but were not).

For all we know, the aircraft may have been on the ground at that time (but that implies the northern arc). Being on the ground may have resulted in two very similar pings tho.

I do not believe there has been anything that describes which arc earlier pings were on. Earlier would still have been mirrored north/south, but might (with some squinting of the eyes) given clues to which was it was moving after the last PSR contact.

Also keep in mind that there could have been some amount of time after the last ping that the aircraft continued to move.

Now India has suspended the search:

India suspends search operation for missing Malaysian aircraft - The Times of India

Then Malaysian PM calls Indian PM for help in locating plane:

Missing plane: Malaysia?s premier calls Indian PM for help | Business Line

Rumor is that, India is not happy with information shared by Malaysia so far. India feels that they are being sent on wild goose chase and seem they support China theory that plane never flew west.

Seriously, whats happening.