@auraflyer

Authorities hopefully have pulled the CVR from that flight that reported "mumbled contact". If not then it will have been overwritten, however a recording of the channel by a ground station might be available. Either way I am sure it has been analyzed in great detail as it would potentially be a very significant piece of evidence.

Oi vey
 

MISSING MH370: ACARS cannot be disabled - Latest - New Straits Times

According to this article the reason that ACARS was switched off was because it was a flight to China and the ACARS service provider used by Air Malaysia does not cover China.

2 hour cvr? Not a chance it's still on there.

I am not a pilot (I'm not considering flight simming for 24.5 years as being a professional pilot :E )

Theories I heard / read and ruled out (due to my logical approach and analysis of available information and / or simming experience)

1. Kidnapping by aliens
-> Oh, c'mon!
2. Landing at any airfield (especially Diego Garcia or airfields with short rwy)
-> Really? There would have been a bunch of people to notice that. Even if it was Diego Garcia: after such a long time something would have leaked to the media.
3. Iran or North Korea (or any "suspect" country / terrorist "club") captured the plane
-> Sorry, this is way out of their imagination. Although this might have given them the idea for future ops
4. Items in cargo hold might have been of interest for the pilots (or any suspicious persons / groups)
-> this would have required a landing (see point 2.)
5. Pax (IT specialists) might have been of interest for the pilots (or any suspicious persons / groups)
-> this would have required a landing (see point 2.)
6. An experiment was carried out
-> Stealth features on a pax plane? Way out of technological capabilities.
7. Fire (especially on main gear)?
-> Radar data (assuming those are correct) showed that the plane climbed above planned FL. Why should a pilot do this in case of a fire?
8. (has been ruled out already) the plane might have been sighted near Maledives.
-> Last contact was around 1:20 near Malaysia. Flight to Male would have been 5hrs - maybe 6hrs. That would be around 7:00/8:00 Malaysia time or 4:00/5:00 Maledives local time. How can somebody identify that aircraft in the dark?
9. Zaharie Ahmad Shah used his self-made simulator for approaches to Indian, Sri Lankan destinations as well as Diego Garcia / Male
-> So what? Not mentioned in the media: which other airports he used to approach? I like island-hopping in my sim. Diego Garcia and Male were also on my list. Am I suspicious now?

Did I miss some speculation? My approach is to wait for the analysis. In the case of AF447 it took more than two years. In the meantime I just "enjoy" ruling out any theory that isn't logical. It's a shame that so many people that call themselves "specialists" or "professional analysts" start to create their own stories to get some attention when so many humans are missing.

Looks like the Malaysians aren't the only ones with issues releasing data!:oh:

Egypt Air ground accident
 

http://www.civilaviation.gov.eg/acci...9-09-2012a.pdf

The entire report and easily could be the issue!

There was only a moon for the first part of the night. By the time the aircraft left Kuala Lumpur it was set. At the time of the flight it was a moonless night.

@ Interested Party - RUBBISH...
 

:rolleyes: Really.... try MFD > COMM > MANAGER > ACARS

Four clicks and ACARS is OFF

:mad:

(to clarify - this does NOT turn off the transceiver, since ACARS is simply a SOURCE for the selected transceiver unit, which incidentally can be ANY of the VHF, HF or SAT radios fitted, but I'm not going to explain all the mode select logic here...)

If acars is shutdown that way does it send a report? Can the comms channels not just be switched off?

It does not send a report if shutdown as described above. There is no magic here, the system simply uses the same set of radios as voice comms - think of it as a fancy modem (remember them?), that gathers certain information from other systems.

@GarageYears
 

I mentioned the speculations I was aware of. My opinion is -sshhhh, nobody should know it right now - that the aircraft finally crashed. It may be that one (or several) of the crew had intentions to land the aircraft somewhere (I'm not ruling out this rumour) but it did not come true (again: my opinion). Might be the pilot lost control in low level flight (unlikely) or the aircraft ran out of fuel. Still speculations and not founded on any evidence.

These Kota Bahru Fisherman definitely saw something.

Several ground witnesses claim they saw Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 - CNN.com

The airport there closes at midnight or remains open for late departures. Also the VOR VKB is a very busy airway intersection and a lot of traffic very high overhead. Maybe our reported Radar hits from Thailand and Malaysia saw the aircraft flying towards KOTA BAHRU, and followed some other target after VKB.
Obviously the description "lights like coconuts"means the aircraft landing lights were on. So it was below 10000 feet. Was it trying to land at WMKC. Maybe our Flightradar24 friends can show what was flying through and above VKB around 0130am?

What they probably mean is the air/ground logic has to be 'Air' for a signal to be transmitted, no guarantee the aircraft ever reverted to 'Ground'?

The final destination
 

suninmyeyes #6060

Very well explained indeed.

Would not all the evidence (and lack of it) so far leave the signature of a pilot (?who) on a suicide mission with the intention of no one ever finding any evidence? Also no suicide note found, so far.

Besides the aussies are quite sure of an area in the South Indian Ocean (in line of pings and probable point of fuel exhaustion (albeit responsible for this quadrant's search).:sad:

Heading to the South Pole
 

Apparently

BBC News - New clues in search for Malaysia Airlines MH370

What chance that the turns etc were searching for an airport that would have lights on?

Just thinking that in an emergency with no comms, flying on visuals mostly, landing on an unlit airfield is going to be something to avoid, if not impossible, and I would guess that different airfields have different policies after curfew.

(Non professional long time lurker)-

911 hijackers mistakenly transmitted to ATC when they meant to make an announcement to the cabin, the reported mumbling could simply be a mis-keyed mic from a rouge on the flight deck.


Mickjoebill

Im thoroughly confused. Initialy I thought it was wrong of anyone to assert as fact that they knew when a new waypoint was inserted into the flight plan. But I came here and the posts I read seemed to me to accept the premise. I retired 10 years ago but do not recall that a flightplan change was somehow automatically reported to the ground.

But now, "what we know" is being challenged---here anyway, not on CNN. For two days CNN has been challenging its "experts" to explain why a new off course waypoint was entered into the flight plan. As in this report from WOLF today. And I quote:

" significant new developments.....and right now to that sharp turn to the west that the jet took about an hour after takeoff. A senior US official tells CNN the altered route was actually entered into the plane guidance system at least 12 minutes before the co-pilot signed off with air traffic controllers with the words 'all right, good night'".

Someone please tell me how anyone would know what was entered into the flight plan short of someone transmitting that info via acars.

this is a question.

#6060 suninmyeyes.

Point of interest - you mention that you never select Stby. on the transponder, even when selecting a new squawk ?

"in my day" we were told to always select stby. when re-selecting, to guard against "accidentally" - even momentarily - pausing on one of the "77XX" emergency selections whilst re-arranging the numbers, to do so would immediately set off an alarm in the ATC unit monitoring, and even if immediately changed would raise suspicions that you were in trouble, and subsequently trying to mask the situation - i.e. a hijack attempt, so action would be irrevocably started.

What's changed ?

Thanks.

Tonight's BBC report
 

One big thing I took away from this is that the Australians appear to be taking a larger public role, as is the NTSB. That's good.

The other big thing is the AMSA guy saying there were multiple SATCOM "keep-alive" pings, and their records are available. They have some more processing to do on those pings.

They're also saying the aircraft may have been on a 180-degree heading, but they didn't say where that track began.