With all the myriad possibilities, has anyone considered the recent EY461 incident ? I doubt that would cause a sudden disintegration, but it is a recent event, and originated in that part of the world.

Did 9M-MRO have inflight wifi service ? Another method of getting something out, if there were sufficient time to do so.

From what various posters have said, the aircraft was not under civilian primary radar coverage at the time the various signals were lost. If there had been a naval ship in the area, with an air search radar operating, they may have seen something that could lend a clue. Beyond that, if the aircraft ended up transiting some remote land area, would a military radar automatically scramble jets to see what was up there, or would they note it and ignore it (because it wasn't considered a threat) ?

bedder beleivit


your knowledge of radar is a very welcome addition to the thread. as many of us know radar sep is required to be more conservative the farther from the radar antenna.

it would be odd, but believable if the secondary and primary were confused by someone leading to the idea of a turnback.

anyway, I do wish we would get an actual statement from authorities about the way the radar was being used, but there might be a military secret or something else involved.

all I am suggesting is that the searchers may be looking in the wrong spot.

being a good old rooting tooting American, I'm betting our ships and planes spot it before anyone else.

;-)

Looking at the ever-widening search area, the logical conclusion is no, they don't have any useful primary/military radar plot. It could be that there are some recordings that might produce something when analysed but it's almost past the time frame for that now - I'm sure that was thought of not long after they drew a blank originally.

There is a '10,000 foot checklist'? In my company, the seat-belt signs are in the after take-off checklist, but often that item is deferred until we're clear of weather obviously.

BTW, we do check that pressurization is normal passing 10,000 ft, and I'm sure many other airlines will have the same procedure as well, for obvious reasons. Of the thousands of flights I've done, I've had two instances where pressurization wasn't normal passing 10,000 ft, one resulting in an RTB (return to base) and the other, maintaining altitude until the problem was rectified (as it was a simple fix). In our case, pressurization was a problem; could it have been the same for MH370?

Fingers crossed that the most recent debris search doesn't turn out to be another false lead. Two comments:

Deletion of posts: I would like to buy a bottle and a bucket of ice for the mod or mods who've been monitoring this thread, to be imbibed as soon as the hubbub's died down. You have done a superb job of trying to keep it credible, even if there might have been a few deletions that could have remained.

Malacca Straits: Think pragmatic, not conspiracy. It's not every day that a superpower has the opportunity to explore sensitive areas with some of the most sophisticated kit available. At this time we have no idea whether there was any real indication the aircraft was heading west. But put yourself in superpower shoes and wonder whether it might not be a good idea to get an update on your existing data, with full support from local governments? Of course you'd go for it.

My experience as a pax without any claims to rigour is that things loosen up in the cabin just after reaching cruise. People get to their feet and movement starts.

On another forum I frequent, it's often pointed out that the mods do a fairly thankless job decrufting runaway threads such as this, and as such should be spared from their actions being questioned.

The simple rule: no whining.

Rule 2: if you don't like it, feel free to request a refund of your membership.

:)

Facts and Conclusions
 

If you take the point in time where transponders shut off as t=0, or corresponding location as origin point, a few results can be arrived at:


1. Lack of debris on sea surface in the immediate vicinity of origin point lead us to believe that the aircraft did not structurally disintegrate, either due to aerodynamic forces or through explosives .
2. Lack of IR signature confirmation by US SBIRS (Infra red spotting satellite system) also lends credence to the result that the aircraft did not explode in air at origin point.
3. Suicide theory can also be laid to rest because a pilot intent on committing suicide will not linger around in air and in fact will try to head down right away after turning off transponders leading to debris field around origin point.
4. However, since we know as a fact that the aircraft eventually crashed, it leads us to believe that the aircraft was severely impaired at t=0, even if it was structurally intact. Whatever happened around t=0 was catastrophic enough to eventually bring the aircraft down. It not only took out communication ability of the pilots but a lot more than that.
5. A set of pilots finding themselves in a catastrophic situation are highly likely to look for a landing strip ASAP. Given that they have likely lost their navigational ability as well (most likely), at night, they are going to head for nearest land, wherever they might think it is.
6. If we take it as a fact from Malaysian authorities that the aircraft tried to turn around, it could be an indication that the pilots were in trouble and wanted to find land in haste.
7. Malaysian authorities claimed in the beginning (perhaps even now) that they lost radar contact at 2:40AM, more than an hour after t=0, if that is true then they were tracking an aircraft in huge trouble looking to land somewhere or anywhere. But it provides a radius of around one hour flying time from origin point to search for.
8. Regarding US SBIRS lack of IR signature, it could depend on what their system is optimized to detect. A missile launch is sustained bright fire, an aircraft crashing in a fireball is short term quick burning fire. SBIRS probably accurately confirm that the aircraft did not explode in air, however, will it also accurately confirm that it did not burn under jungle canopy for a short time?.

Bingo. There's sure to be a lot of information being correlated around the world to try to work out where the aircraft is, and there's no need or benefit to putting all that out publicly; just look at the reaction to every new debris report, and then imagine reporting perhaps dozens or hundreds of uncertain radar traces or other possible sightings that are unlikely to be correct, and may well contradict each other.

If nothing else, it would be unfair on the families to raise hopes and dash them when a report turns out to be false.

+1.

Indeed if they had useful Information they would have had ample opportunity of discretely getting it to a Search Ship or plane by now which would have run 'accidentally' across some wreckage even potentially on its way to the search area if it wasn't close to LKP. Would have been a big PR trump for the corresponding Navy.

Occam's Razor says: Even the Military have not much more Information regarding the final whereabouts or what happened after the last transmission. Since that would be a quite embarrassing fact for them they might be tempted to keep rather silent about it.

Realistically, simply no one was expecting anything critical from a Military perspective in these small hours that particular night. Actual everyday surveillance capabilities might not be as good as everyone assumes.

I'm still confident it will be found soon. A 777 is a big aircraft. That doesn't simply disppear. It might however be somewhere else than where it is being looked for atm.
On the other Hand the question might be how systematic the Search is being carried out when considering how many different (and not centrally managed) parties are involved.

There are a few questions here indeed.

The aircraft, if indeed it was in the middle of the Gulf, would have been just outside the Malaysian radar cell and about to enter Vietnam's. Modern birds like the 777 use ADSB (which is what you see in apps like Flight Radar 24, it is NOT a radar feed).

The thought of the aircraft turning back comes not from a radar observation but from ACARS. More investigation is needed. If it was from radar (assuming the return was spotted), means very little. Radar does NOT tell you which direction the aircraft is facing, it simply gives you the next return. For example, you can be going north and move in a sideslip to the right, the radar will show your return to have turned.

If the data came from ACARS it is a different story, but still inconclusive. It could be showing a violent breakup. Without other data such as speed and amount of correlated data showing the "turn", there is not much to go by.

The gulf does not have a lot of strong currents, so any debirs, once found, should be (hopefully) localised.

I am starting to wonder if the initial hunch to look to the north-west and possibly even terrain south west of Ca Mau and around Kota Bharu is correct!

If they don't find anything within 24 more hours, I think it may be time to step back and consider possibilities other than a crash into the ocean. The area of ocean where the 777 is reported to have disappeared is relatively densely traveled, and a 777 would leave a whole lotta floating debris (especially if it broke up in-flight). Add dozens of dedicated search ships and aircraft and it becomes hard to believe we could go 72 hours without finding a trace.

There is an awful lot of the reported 'facts' in this case that are not adding up.

Military radar data
 

It's been years since I've worked in the field, but in the day, the powers-that-be were extremely reluctant to publicly disclose anything that would reveal capabilities of their military radars. Even if it meant helping with a civil matter.

Radar Coverage
 

Once upon a time two commercial aircraft did a mid air over the grand canyon. My source said both were reporting being elsewhere and each was taking passengers for an off track sight see of the canyon.

Results was Congress mandate the US Air Force put in place 100% coverage of the US for ATC.

Take care not to extrapolate the US flight coverage picture to the rest of the world. I get 600+ miles between Kuala Lumpur and Bien Hoa Air Base in Viet Nam. That is a lot of water with no eye's on a scope.

Curious
 

I'm curious as to whether or not an inflight breakup would not cause a fireball or flash of some kind.

I suppose it would possible, but I think not probable.

If NASA is telling the truth about not seeing a flash of any kind, and so far, no reports from the surface, plus the 3 or 4 aircraft in the area on clear night have not reported they saw anything, then it either disintegrated with no flash, or it was flown somewhere else.

However, if it disintegrated with no flash, it should be near where they last saw it on radar...yes?

There are a lot of international implications in the area, and I'm sure all the countries involved in the search want to be very careful about what they release.

Yesterday there was the report of a gentleman who had seen a bright white light descending sharply.

Given his location, the last reported position of the aircraft, etc - would this match the scenario of the flight descending to avoid radar and possibly crossing Malaysia toward the west? Could he have seen either the usual lights, or possibly landing lights? Might the pilot have illuminated the landing lights either in an attempt to attract attention (if he was under duress) or simply to see better if flying at a very low altitude?

Also - Since this transpired in the middle of the night, with it dark outside and many passengers presumably resting - if the pilots were quietly threatened into cooperation and the various coms were shut off, would passengers even have been aware of a hijacking?

We know a 777 disappeared over the ocean and we have not found the crash site. Any reasonable speculation at this point as to why is impossible.

It took two years to get the answers for AF447. The shallow water near their last known position will make this one much easier. The black boxes will tell the story when they are found.

The media wants to keep public interest up with scraps they have like stolen passports but nothing will be known until the FDR and CVR are recovered.

The vast majority of the speculative posts here are all with good intentions. This forum has managed to maintain a good level of respectability compared to everywhere else. I saw a youtube video of a guy suggesting that FR24 had altered the planes flight path. He has merged together a trace of the actual flight in question and the one of the following day. His video has been viewed 60000 times and a lot of people seem to believe the guy...so although you might complain about having non-pilots on here at least you don't have people intentionally spreading lies...

re: Radar Coverage
 

The 1956 Grand Canyon mid-air had nothing to do with "sightseeing". That it occurred over the Grand Canyon was purely coincidence. There were changes in altitude due to weather and other factors. Changes in altitude were granted but not relayed. The crash resulted in the coordination of ATC under the newly created FAA.

1956 Grand Canyon mid-air collision - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Malaysian authorities have released security video of the two men who used stolen passports to board the Malaysia Airlines plane that vanished over the South China Sea to international security agencies and will soon release them publicly."

Source: Missing Malaysia Airlines jet: Security footage of mystery passengers to be released

Too true, anything without logic is quickly jumped on which is good, either by removal or several posts quoting & disproving with there own evidence.

At least here, most posts have a link to their source, so forum users & judge for themselves about the factuality of a comment. A very good habit to be in.

@bubbers44
It took two years to get the answers for AF447

It took but a day to find debris

I am not surprised at all the speculation going on here - this is clearly a very unusual accident and the eventual explanation will be of a very unusual and rare nature. One would not have expected that the pilots of AF447 would display such levels of inability to fly their aircraft and would crash it in such a way.

However, it would be wise to wait until at least a little more information emerges. One should also not expect British or American levels of transparency from the Malaysian authorities. Other countries organisations don't necessarily share the view that all items of information should be released and so withhold certain items. They also get very prickly when challenged (bureaucrats are like that). Military involvement will also limit the amount of information released. Military organisations are past masters at operating the 'need to know' principle to its fullest. Add in possible turf wars and one begins to think that it is amazing that so much has been released. All this, though, doesn't help the search which would benefit from sharing information. But then a search involving a lot of different agencies always has the flavour of trying to herd cats.

OBD - it would be either the National Reconnaissance Office or the DOD itself whose SBIRS satellites would have seen a flash, not NASA.
A few pages back, there was an explanation as to why an in-flight breakup in the cruise might not necessarily result in an explosion.
Agree with the above poster.
This is a part of the world where there is a fair bit of military tension at the moment.
If military radar is being used as source data to try and help in the search, I would imagine there would be huge sensitivity and scrutiny before releasing anything that might give a clue to operational capabilities.
I suspect that's the real reason for the Civil Aviation guy's rather mysterious comment that he `can't tell the press everything.'
I also suspect that's why they're looking in the Straits of Malacca as well... they know something we don't yet.
Some insight can be gained here as to how any search involving military capabilities there might be a little `delicate' so to speak.

The two individuals with stolen passports bought the cheapest flight available for their routes, so they flew economy.
Sitting in the back of the airplane, they would draw attention just by coming forward into the first class/cockpit area. That seems inconsistent with a planned hijacking. They are more likely just two of the victims rather than perpetrators.

@Tartare
 

Thanks for the correction. I couldn't remember.

I did see the previous posts about the no flash break up. I'm just not sure

I agree with the above poster as well.

Have a good evening.

Interesting new tidbit:

CNN' chief national security correspondent said the revelation that Mr Ali bought passports and tickets for the two Iranian passengers adds to concerns the loss of the Flight MH370 might have been a terrorist atrocity.

Jim Sciutto said: "This adds to the concerns because a terrorist group would go to a fixer too."

"They piggyback on drug smugglers and immigration smugglers, so absolutely they could go to this guy. He may know nothing about it. He would be just given a sum of money and told 'get these people on an airplane, get them passports'."

MH have decided to bring the families of all the 'lost' passengers to Kuala Lumpur as soon as possible. There is an additional service from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur today especially for the families, the details being highly confidential. The overflow passengers will be accommodated on scheduled services. The OneWorld partners of MH have been requested to assist with transport to KUL from all parts of the World except China.

The reasons for this action appear to be due to the unrest and problems being caused by the families of 'missing' passengers in China. All costs including medical and cash are being borne by MH. Each family is being provided with at least one MH staff member acting in the role of a caregiver. MH staff from Australia have been sent to KUL to assist with the families of 'missing' non Asian passengers.

The name of the Chinese passenger whose name was obscured on a passenger namelist released has now been released. The investigation team now believe there is a link between the 2 passengers using fake passports and the disappearance of the aircraft which could be anywhere.

A disaster recovery management specialist from Atlanta has been engaged to assist MH with dealing's with Authorities

Earlier in the thread, there were quotes from the ticket agent who sold the tickets. If accurate, it really doesn't sound like there was any particular requirement to get the two with stolen passports on the same flight - never mind a particular flight. If that's true, then it seems unlikely they were terrorists.

From CNBC World:
Updates on MH370: Malaysian authorities have postponed news conferences indefinitely.

I am kind of amazed that nothing has turned up after 3 days. I still don't think weather is an issue but I went ahead and assembled a collection of charts profiling the upper-air data, sea-surface temperature, and currents for you all to peruse. I saw several pages back that people were asking about winds aloft, so I have included some radiosonde profiles from both Ho Chi Minh City and the Malaysian coast.

Tim Vasquez
Weather Graphics

Link:
Collection of meteorological and oceanographic images for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 - Weather Graphics

Sample chart: FL340 chart for 08/0000 UTC with observed radiosonde and interpolated winds:
http://www.weathergraphics.com/malay..._250_small.gif

Debris
 

Sadly, the South China Sea, at least the stretch between Kota Kinabalu, in Malaysian Borneo, and Hong Kong, is incredibly littered with debris and garbage. There are also plenty of large patches of oil. If the rest of the SCS is similarly polluted, wouldn't this increase the difficulty of locating debris from MH 370?

The Malaysian authorities are handling the situation rather respectably. Their efforts to take care of the families are First world standards, in my opinion. There are enough experts and assets allocated to the search and I am certain the boots on the ground are doing all they can, systematically. Taking care of the families is now the priority as the 'rescue' efforts become 'recovery'. Those in the business would understand the meaning and mindset shift.

Having a loved one missing is horrible. I was once in a flight that was diverted, delayed and then returned to the place of origin. It was before the days of cellphones. My fiancee then was worried sick and could not find a means of finding out what went wrong and fearing the worse. In such situation, they will cling to any hopes, any theory that offers a chance of survival. They are extremely vulnerable. I find that in such circumstances those that try to profiteer are the scums. Reporters that try to sensationalise, clairvoyants that claim that they can help to locate the missing, lawyers that circle to get a class action suit, etc. The NST already reports that 'Bomohs' (the local title for clairvoyants) are joining the search.

MISSING MH370: Help from bomohs must be in accordance to Islam - Latest - New Straits Times

http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-co...plane-1.506402

Conjecture
 

Given the massive amounts of speculation on this event which in all honesty is bizarre given the lack of physical evidence so far might I suggest this accident/ unlawful interference or what ever the cause is a good catalyst for ICAO to revisit Interpol procedures for passport databases/ info sharing and also real or semi realtime data transmission or alternative methods of flight data retrieval to what is current installed.

Similarly, and not that this implies a cause in this case- merely another Achilles heel to address, look at the U tube link below which highligts what I believe is a weak spot in a 777 ( in fact all Boeings greater than 767 in size as fitted) defences. I have been banging away trying to mandate a fix for several years but frankly am getting a sore head doing so. Although I honestly believe this will most likely turn out to not be relevant in the MH case, it provides information that might be in need of attention by authorities ( IMHO only)

Woodja,

Would someone accessing this area be able to shut down all coms/transponder/etc by pulling appropriate C/Bs?

No it isn't. There are damn good reasons why no one cared before and those damn good reasons will continue to exist after the cause of this accident has been determined.

The fact is that the illegal passport has nothing to do with the incident. The entire airline security apparatus is designed to make sure that the authenticity of the passport is irrelevant to the actual security of the plane. There is nothing a terrorist can do with a fake passport that he or she cannot also do with a real one.

If this does wind up being a terrorist incident the focus will be...rightly so...on how the explosives got on the plane...a fact for which the passport is not relevant. There is no good reason to turn the airline industry into the goon squad for the immigration authorities.

apparently not
 

No , nothing to worry about according to several very large carriers ,
Boeing, FAA, Homeland security , FBI , OTS (Australia ) .. hmmm anyone else
I have advised.

I might add I have 3000 command hours B777 ( among other types ) so not just an academic ..

Maybe there might be some traction on this, if there can be said to be anything
good about any crash occurring changing the status quo at all

Jugofpropwash: the breakers are on the flight deck, but most of the radios and fancy electronics are in the e&e bay. So yes I could start pulling boxes.

Don't have a layout of a 777 bay handy, but in general HF and Sat Comms are in the tail.

Amen
 

@Passenger_389: Completely agree with every statement you made. Couldn't have said it better myself. The theories are getting more bizarre, and are becoming less factual. And it's a stretch to say there are many facts to begin with.

Anything is possible, within reason. A plane lost without debris, at least at this point in time, narrows things down only marginally: e.g. areas searched, mechanisms of crash.

Apologies for putting it bluntly, but this story is in its infancy and has yet to be told. It will be fascinating once discovered, but until then, everything is mere speculation. Being a pathologist (side job as pilot) it's akin to trying to postulate a cause of death and not even having a body to autopsy yet. We're still at the "missing person" stage. Once the correct areas are searched thoroughly, evidence will be uncovered. Undoubtedly it will. Until then? Not much to go on, in my humble opinion.

Of course the theories will continue to run wild...

Not quite, in many countries a known terrorist can't get on an airline using his own identity.
Yes, in its present state, the concept of using an immigration document for security is partially flawed because the most careful examination of identity happens when a passenger[B]arrives[/B at the destination.

Passports can be stolen (even blank ones), pictures photoshopped, facial features altered…

Lets keep passports for proof of nationality and that can continue to be run and governed by each country, but why not add a second, robust and modern layer of identity check which could be managed and implemented by interpol.

Something along the lines of a retina scan, so no additional documents to carry, can't be faked, sold or manipulated by corrupt officials.

Essentially a bad guys record would stay with his retina record.

So after passport control you'd step up to the Interpol Retina Scanner™, wait a few seconds then continue on your merry way.

Sure the rollout would take many years, but reliance solely on a piece of paper and a photo is not the future!

Transport bodies have mandated numerous restrictions on the flying public, no smoking, X-ray radiation, shoes off, belts off, physical searches, no liquids, metal and explosive detectors, all of which target trying to catch the implements of terror rather than the terrorist.

If airlines and airports the world over can agree on such a wide range of security impositions a retina scan can be achieved.