jmmilner said

It is not He Had Simulator = He Did it

I am pretty sure not a single person believes that.

What it instead is

-Plane goes missing in extremely sophisticated way; one that was quite possibly practiced before attempting to pull off.
-Last known person to fly the plane has a devise he can practice flying the plane on, in nearly any situation, in his home.

It makes no sense refusing to check it, just like every single other person on the plane needs to be checked to see if they possibly have a way of figuring out how to pull this off.

Some thoughts
 

Since this thread was started on March 7, there have been almost 5,000 posts, and over 7.5 million views.

We have muddled through a huge number of theories, and possible causes.

Once in awhile, someone brings up that 239 souls may have been lost.

As we trudge through this, I would ask all to take moment, a breath, and think some good thoughts about those on board MH 370.

Regards,

OBD

No need to lighten the pilots pocket books :D

The system you are describing is already expected to be retrofitted to aircraft in the near future. It is Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Contract (ADS-C) Extended Projected Profile or ADS-C EPP. This will be used over VHF data link FANS 2/B and over SATCOM FANS 1/A (it already is in use by some aircraft). FANS 1/A ADS-C is transmitted ~every 10 minutes but could be at 90 second intervals; FANS 2/B ADS-C could also be transmitted every 90 seconds. This would be in line with SESAR/NextGen and would also answer the BEA requests after AF447. The advantage of ADS-C EPP is that it transmits up to 128 waypoints from the FMC active route and a lot of other data. :D

Malaysian jet 'avoided radars in three countries' | Stuff.co.nz

Why go to such trouble? Possible explanations
 

Consensus is it was a deliberate act with significant knowledge and non-trivial planning and flight for several hours either on Northern arc through China towards Eastern Europe or South to Indian Ocean. No single convincing explanation has yet emerged as to why go to these lengths. A few thoughts.

A) The theory of going North and landing somewhere remote for re-use as a weapon is interesting but I am assuming all strips of sufficient length are known as a result of a Cold War spanning many decades after the advent of high resolution satellite imagery and have been investigated by now by satellite, and ones with convenient hangarage more directly (although we may not know). One would hope that (at least) until it is found all the military around will be on high readiness and alert for any unexpected primary contact or questionable secondary and a T7 trying to creep along slowly at low level pretending to be a GA VFR flight with no tx is likely to get noticed, so 2nd part of plan seems less likely to work, we hope. But that's not to say any terrorist who has done what seems like the difficult bit was sufficiently rational and self-critical to have figured that out, and may have a plan. So I'd say this is still possible but not that likely.

B)Or did they carefully plan everything else but then have a "Doh!" moment by overestimating fuel on board or burning more than planned in initial high climb then lower level flight and fail to make a visible target perhaps in Europe and crash somewhere dark in remote Eastern Europe, without a fireball after engines flameout, still waiting to be discovered. Seems possible, question is could they have disabled ELTs first (and would they have bothered if intending to hit somewhere else anyway).

C)Indian Ocean if you want to make it hard to be found, this could be the pilot wanting it to be a long time to have cause discovered so his estranged family don't suffer, but arguably a dive at Vne into ground in remote jungle with lots of fuel still on board possibly with some erratic inputs, less planned and muffled struggle sounds on CVR (and maybe even a radio call suggesting distress) in case it survives would seem simpler unless he really wanted to keep a mystery alive. So possible but frankly seems unlikely. I would remain sceptical of any conjecture based on his t-shirts, family situation, etc as I suspect a sizeable proportion of professional pilots who won't ever plan or execute a complex disappearance have personal lives which could be construed as indicative of latent dissatisfaction with something. Now if his flight sim happens to have a route corresponding to route flown and relevant recent manual extracts, then we might reconsider but until then nothing to me supports this.

D)Or someone else who actively wants extended mystery, perhaps a true Bond villain type organisation who wants to show it can make a plane disappear... yet then apparently keeps quiet? Of course they may be in secret discussions as to what they want with some vague threat to repeat if motive is financial and they seriously think (unlikely) they can elude most of the world's co-ordinated efforts to track them. Seems unlikely.

E)Personally I doubt whether a religious or political fanatical terrorist organisation would go to such systematic lengths and not want a show either with a dramatic climax or publicly claiming responsibility and I suspect all chatter from all known such organisations has been minutely scrutinised for any hint. Time may reveal more, but if something useful were known or even suspected, there would be a lot of pressure to reveal at least something by now to allay public unease that authorities didn't have a clue.

F)Or a true "terrorist" wanting extended uncertainty - I suspect many rational pilots and passengers are more uneasy about flying and this may give a similar knock to aviation as 9/11. Perhaps a fanatical environmental group unheard of previously, many environmental activists are intelligent people with the wit I guess to access information, and off the radar (no pun intended) of conventionally blinkered security services. A recent BBC Horizon as it happened showed a group of trained US security people all failed to spot a similar threat and only a newbie did as the experienced analysts all looked for the usual suspects. Worryingly it seems hard to rule this out, though I suspect if it were correct, it is unlikely to be repeated, which if appreciated makes it less worrying, I suppose! Possible but also seems unlikely.

G) Interestingly the northern track plus any flying beyond last "ping" gives a good chance of aircraft being in China. Now given that China was the original destination, and the passengers were naturally full of people who know the country, it is not impossible that there was a plan to throw people off the scent then head back to a point in China for some purpose. Now just suppose (admittedly no evidence I have seen to support this) Chinese military discovered it some time after it had first entered Chinese airspace then hastily intercepted and shot it down. Would they A) freely admit to the watching world their air defences are porous and that they have just shot down an aircraft with hundreds of their own citizens on board or B) keep quiet and go on the offensive and criticise another county's incompetence for the incident? I don't know and it would be speculation from me or anyone else without inside knowledge to pursue this thought, but I can't quite see yet why this can be ruled out.

Before anyone shouts (although it seems this may be summarily deleted) I fully accept there is no evidence (to my knowledge) convincingly supporting or disproving any of these theories yet, which is my point. It would be good if at least some of them could be concisely sensibly rejected with even a single hard fact, rather than just someone else's supposition that they are unlikely. I personally don't see a better explanation out there yet, though there may be one. So applying Sherlock's principle, one of these unlikely theories for an unlikely event may be correct. I fear however, hoping to be proved wrong, that the only fact which will do the trick is the finding of the aircraft, which may take some time.

The only thought more appalling than the fact of this tragedy, is the terrible thought that we may never know what happened.

If, as seems to be accepted, someone deliberately turned off all comms and flew the a/c seven hours away from the original flight path, then it's a reasonable conclusion that they do not want it to be found.

I assume all circuits in a modern aircraft have circuit breakers. This presumably includes the CVR/CDR. It would seem logical to hit that breaker as well. That would be the ultimate insult to the victims, assuming the airframe is ever found.

Back to SC Sea
 

You may be right. Not to forget Malaysian police reporting hearwitness accounts of a loud bang near coast off Kota Bharu.

Not sure if anyone here has given Tomnod a go or not - I have but found it annoying that I couldn't see where my map related to / the actual area I was searching. I figured if someone has a theory of where the plane went down then it would be nice to be able to search that specific area, not just a randomly generated map.

I saw someone post a way round this so thought I'd share it incase anyone is interested. I can't see this info in the thread already so hopefully this post will stay!


Load a map at Tomnod

Change the word "challenge" in the url to "api". This brings up a page with the latitude & longitude on it which you can then google. You can then decide whether to search this area or select "Jump to random map" and start the process again :)

Tomnod
 

changing challenge to upi brings up page not found.

With CNN covering other matters, I switched on FOX and Judge Pirro's 2 hour MH370 special. BTW, some of the annoying "talking heads" and hosts/hostesses on TV make the most annoying folks in this forum (probably including me) seem like Mother Teresa...

...interviewing her 2nd "guest expert" she started off a query with "we know there was a unexpected turn pre-programmed into the flight..." - the guest started to say "thats not clear" and she argues "yes it is" and (with host perogative) changes the subject and moves forward.

SO I grant you this is an un-sourced issue (reported by ABC NEWS and FOX and "their sources") that could make this less than a FACT.

That "maybe fact" and the timing of the off-ACARS-14-minutes-transponder-THEN "alright goodnight" has had me convinced for some time that deliberate actions not electro-mechanical mishap (like coffee or batteries) is afoot. The authorities who have seen other data appear to believe this, though I dont trust them and I dont exactly rule out a KAL shootdown mentality in this day and age.

SO: has anyone sourced a reliable time-sensible unexpected-pre-programmed-turn?
Reliable is of course the operative word.

@Brika
 

api not upi :)

What has been of most concern is the seeming insistence to not adhere to a single timeframe.

Why has UTC not been used since day 1 to describe events?

The first few days were a catalogue of mistaken timezones.

:mad:

The photo's I have seen of the Captains sim indicate to me it is little more than a toy.

I do NOT understand why someone with as much experience as this guy flying the real thing would build such a box, let alone use it! He could have used the Sim's at work, clearly he was senior enough to probably even bring friends in if he particularly wanted to.

I understand fighter combat sims and the like - they are good fun, but it is always acknowledged they are toys. In fact the 'good' sims to my mind are the ones that don't pretend to be anything else.

I accept there might be weirdo anorak wearing pilots out there who might want to make a cardboard (although cardboard is accurate, and most pilots have used them in basic training), milk carton, string and elastic band box painted to look like the one you are forced to spend 1000 hours a year in, but in 30 years I have NEVER met one personally. He clearly spent money on it, and for what it is its no doubt good, but if you have kids and don't fly I would liken it to something 'Mr Maker' on TV would create in comparison to a real FFS, let alone the aircraft.

That sim would give you basic terrain awareness - though no more than Google Earth and I would assume Flight Management Computer functions. NOTHING else would even remotely be like 'the real thing' nor even the 'real' MAS sim the guy could access whenever he wanted to. Any 'practice' he would get from that construction would be considered (IMHO) 'Negative Training'. In other words, using it would lessen your physical flying skills on the 'real thing'.

Ive got 15,000 odd hours in Boeings and extra in full flight sims. The last thing I would be doing is building one at home so I can pretend I am at work when I am at home. I have enough manuals to read already without having to create others myself to explain to me how to fly a box I built for fun:):)

As an aside, I spoke with a mate of mine who flies tripplers and I asked him how his gold stealing plans are progressing. He said he would have 50-60 tonnes on board every time he takes off from one particular airport but T7's are actually quite hard to hide. He's not giving the problem his full attention obviously, but it's not something you would just wake up one night and think 'Ive got a really great idea to try sometime'...

re cospas-sarsat, yes.

But given all of the other recent evidence (that the satcom may have been transmitting after the a/c would have been out of fuel) it is less likely that it crashed and more likely that it landed, so the ELT is unlikely to have been automatically activated.

Now if one of the pax had their own 406 MHz PLB....

as per previous posts, it seems likely that the Australian JORN radar system was not operating at the time

One small thing that caught my eye in this sea of dross and odd bits of logic was post #1388.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v...type=2&theater

How does the security camera video footage from inside the terminal get onto facebook in such short order?

Also see map from earlier ...

http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/%7Emark/p.../australia.png

Red circle is 40 degree arc for IOR. Blue is limit of 6 hours flight from Phuket at 900km/h. Pink is limit of coverage of POR. White is 3000km radar coverage from Laverton.

So there are places on the red arc which are reachable by 8:11am but not covered by JORN.

I realize I'm flying pretty low tech planes by some standards but PLEASE TELL ME HOW SOMEONE KNOWS IF THERE IS PREPROGRAMMED TURN IN the FMS without having the FMS present?

rigbyrigs, how does someone know without being on the plane if it is pre programmed?

I don['t know

anyone?

Much like Huck Finn in Tom Sawyer;

WHY would you fly South?

Suicide = why wait?
Ditch = why risk it? - bloody dangerous if there is no reason.
Time = risk of discovery/(some) crew getting back control?

ELTs and surveillance
 

I can easily arm or disarm my ELT from the left seat...

I can't envision the airplane getting into or beyond Pakistan or any of the other 'stans without U.S. surveillance assets seeing it. Same for the respective militaries of India and China and their territories. But that doesn't mean it's not there. They may have seen it but not recognized it for what it was, or they allowed it in with full knowledge of what was going on.

For one thing, it's not impossible to file and fly as a different aircraft, even one operated by a government, with full ATC knowledge. And it's unlikely any U.S. surveillance assets were looking in the right direction at the right time to pick out this T7 from the clutter, but there may have been some non-scheduled flights acting like a big Boeing. I think theories about it tailgating another aircraft are a bit far-fetched because of the skills required, but masquerading as yet another Boeing doesn't seem all that difficult.

At the end of the day, if this isn't a result of a mechanical failure, a botched hijacking that ended over water, or suicide, it's a very sophisticated and well-executed plan, to an unknown end. If so, the airplane likely is on the ground somewhere, well-camouflaged or hangared, perhaps having landed before dawn at a secluded location, like a military base. That means state actor, or at least someone acting with a government's tacit approval and a sophisticated, well -planned, -disguised and -implemented endeavor. So far.

Who has the resources and testicular fortitude to plan and pull this off?

Ultimately, though, I think the highest probability here is Captain Speaking did a deadstick lawn dart into the IO, and some trace will be identified in 48 hours or so.