The Malacca Straits
 

Fact
1. The Malacca Straits are not just where the label on the map says but the entire waterway from Penang to Singapore.
2. Kuala Lumpar airport is only about 5 miles inland from "The Malacca Straits"

Not verified fact
Aircraft attempts return to base.

My guesses
With limited or no aids overflies the Malay peninsular on purpose. Turns southwards, easier to navigate with clearly defined and familiar coast line on left hand side. Plan to continue southwards until Port Dickson identified left turn and land.
But something happened, so now look in The Malacca Straits.

Did MAS just let something slip out?
 

In their latest communication the airline said "The authorities are looking at a possibility of an attempt made by MH370 to turn back to Subang" (my italics).

The plane didn't originate from Subang, and if this is more than speculation it explains why they're focussing the search on the west side of the peninsula.

Malaysian officials non-committal on MH370 ACARS transmissions - 3/11/2014 - Flight Global

Officials investigating the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER are tight-lipped about Aircraft Communications and Reporting System (ACARS) data reported by the aircraft.

WHY?

Nonetheless, ACARS data proved crucial for gaining an early understanding of Air France flight AF447, which crashed 1 June 2009. Within three days of this aircraft’s disappearance investigators released ACARS data, revealing that the aircraft had transmitted a number of failure reports for various aircraft systems.

Borderline Racism?
 

It is disappointing to see some comments here, along the lines of Iranian = "potential terrorist" or Asian = "less than competent". What plausible reasoning is there for an Iranian to blow up a Malaysian/Chinese flight?

State Actors: Far more violence is perpetrated against Iran by the West (including targeted assassinations of civilians) than by Iran. Furthermore, why would they take action against an ally?

Non State Actors: the primary NSAs in Iran are Sunni Baloch nationalists/separatists. I can see why they might attack an Iranian, Afghan or Pakistani plane, but it is a huge stretch to think they would put serious effort into attacking a far harder target with no obvious benefit to themselves.

Even terrorists need to have reasons, even if the media like to pretend otherwise.

Well done Captain Ross Aimer, on your interview with the World Press...some good points, however,...in response to the question of how an aircraft may react if "Landing" on water....suggesting that it would break into pieces, does not help us or the cabin staff, with the ditching demonstration, which would require far more animation!....:rolleyes:..otherwise...good stuff!

Might be referring to Subang Center ATC. IIRC the flight was in contact with Subang Center when it disappeared, but close to handover to Ho Chi Minh Center. So the statement above may simply mean that the flight might have been trying to return to Subang Center airspace rather than anything more profound/sinister.

Besides, Subang is essentially KL.

Let's just give the terrorism angle a rest - and the deep suspicions centred around, "they aren't telling us everything".

1. Terrorists make claims shortly after terrorism events to maximise the terror impact. No such claims have been made, apart from one online claim, from a previously-unknown group within China, that the Chinese have deemed a hoax.
More importantly, world intelligence agencies have picked up no increase in known terrorist groups "chatter" - a common happening immediately after a successful terrorist attack.

2. Of course, we "aren't being told everything"! All countries possess secretive defence agencies and installations, and they're not about to let it become public knowledge what they have, and what they are capable of.
Probably more importantly, they don't want it to become public knowledge, what they failed to pick up!

It is highly likely, that even if MH370 flew within range of a military radar, spying setup, or other military establishment, it wasn't picked up - due to lack of operator alertness, even perhaps even, unexpected downtime of the facility.

The simple facts remain that the aircraft most likely suffered a major electrical fault or power outage, or a rapid decompression caused by a cockpit fire or other reasons, leading to rapid crew incapacitation - and the aircraft flew on for an extended distance, well outside any radar coverage, before it finally splashed down in the vastness of the ocean.

Only those who have actually carried out SAR searches over the vastness of the oceans, fully understand how much even a large airliner becomes a "needle in a haystack" out there.

Mmmmm 6 more hours fuel at 400 + kts is a big search area!!
If it did wander off on its own before flaming out...:eek:

That's my gut feeling Nitpicker.

They turned SW (smoke), DP, all incapacitated and kept going and going.

But have no answer why all went quiet on the comms front. If the electrics all died that transmit that stuff, surely the AP went out as well?

Malaysia and Indo would be understandably quiet on how an unexpected aircraft at FL 200 could transit undetected.

That's my least implausible theory anyway!

Crowdsourcing
 

Tomnod has a campaign where you can look at sat. images taken on the day and tag anything suspicious

Crowdsourcing the Search for Malaysia Flight 370 - ABC News

Left field question for experienced SAR people out there:

We're approaching the end of 4 solid days of searching for a missing 777.

Accounting for the last transponder position, last radio call, first non responsive attempt to contact the aircraft and a possible catastrophic failure at FL350, the search area for the aircraft is large. Worse still, worst case, lest I suggest it, a hijacking attempt, initiated by killing the radio and transponder, diverting the aircraft, then something going wrong ending in a detonation that again lead to catastrophic failure, the search area could be at least 1,000,000 sq. miles.

At 450kts in the wrong direction, it doesn't take long to rack up some miles away from the original flight plan.

I have done SAR with the Civil Air Patrol in the US. I've seen wreckage and how hard it is to spot, flying almost right over the top of it. Possibly easier at sea, but I know how fatigue affects you sitting in the back staring out into a bland mass hour after hour.

At what point does such an operation scale down? I remember the Fossett search. The biggest US air search of all time. Two dozen planes over a relatively small area compared to MH370, and also at a more fine grained altitude. True, one would think it should be a lot easier the remains of a 777 at sea than a single engine plane in the mountains, but the fatigue of the search crews might be similar. At what point does the scale step down? After a week? Or, because of the need to find an answer, do we just keep going?

I am thinking the latter. We all want the black box for closure. But maybe SAR teams can chip in on the protocol. Or is this such an exceptional occurrence that it can't be answered?

If went down in water, there WILL be debris, as there's a myriad of materials that will float or designed to float e.g. seat cushions.
If it went down on land, the night departure might limit witnesses and dense jungle will hide a lot.

Not that anyone here would not know that, or said it before, but just thought it was worth a reminder.

From known facts, the transponder was turned off, no radio comms received, and no crash in the area. This implies interference.

The one garbled transmission could have been sent during a struggle.

Its not guaranteed that this aircraft has crashed, or that any hijack went wrong.

What if the miscreants wanted an intact 777? They would have a suitably long and remote field prepared.

The cellphones ringing angle is interesting. Is it normal for a ringtone to be received upon calling a destroyed cellphone? It would be enlightening to know through which base station the calls were routed ... Last point of departure or somewhere else?

I wonder if Li Chi had anything to do with this?

Helios 522 starting to sound similar esp with muffled last comms. Question is how certain it turned back

If the wreckage is on land and hidden by foliage, usage of Synthetic Aperture Radar would yield results. However, who offers that might be an issue.

A FACT and an OPINION from me:

FACT: contrary to what has been reported by some here, AF447 wreckage was found only after 5 days, and was near to the last known position; thus, we are now currently still inside the timeframe for this accident, and the amount of time taken to find MH370 cannot be considered to be "unprecedented" or otherwise exceptional

OPINION: I am not impressed with the public face of the Malaysian search effort. Admittedly the operational side may be much better. Watching there press conference left me highly underwhelmed; specifically:
- no Powerpoint presentation summarising search activities - just a map and voiceover
- joking (highly inappropriate in circumstances) about appearance of those with with stolen passports; released that they were black only under questioning from journalists (if this was publicly releasable information, why not volunteer it?)
- no explanation as to why areas west of Malay peninsula being searched
- search areas have spaces between them; if it is possible that the aircraft is in any two given areas then it must follow (in the absence of other information, none of which has been released) that it can be in the area between them

I still believe it is most probable that the aircraft came down near its last known position; and that the failure to find wreckage so far is simply down to the (second world) searchers having missed it so far.

The report from my colleagues CX Flt HK to KL was made last night around 1700 and I read about it this morning from the Aviation Herald, that was 11 hours ago..... They sent ships out today.....what did they find?

There have been numerous spottings of debris and "slicks" which have turned out to be something other than what is being searched for.

Is this area of ocean relatively littered with debris?

If so, and if the aircraft left little in the way of large floating pieces (this includes any option of the aircraft being outside the search area), then rather than looking for a needle in a haystack, the searchers might be trying to find a needle in a field of other needles.

Very interesting update from Ben Sandilands Blog
 

Hi,

Keypilot
Another fact:
Yes 5 days after the beginning of the Phase 5 of search .. almost 2 years after the accident !!

One of the relatively few intelligent comments on this thread!

Yes I think this is one of the main reasons why this search didn't yield quick results

If this turns out to be terrorist-related, (still a big 'if' at this stage), those who are opining that the terrorists are 'breaking the usual rules' by not claiming responsibility probably should remember that the terrorists 'broke the usual rules' on Sept 11th 2001. Anyone old enough to have been in Aviation pre-Sept 2001 will recall the "don't resist, co-operate in every possible way" rules that were universal in every airline (with the possible exception of El Al and Korean Airlines) until the events of that Tuesday changed everything.

If this is terror-related, maintaining silence is proving remarkably effective, particularly while the wreckage remains not located. The mainstream media will eventually lose interest if nothing happens soon - (it would probably be a very different situation if 230 Americans had been involved, but let's not go there) - but the SAR effort will continue, downgraded, but in some form - and a considerable expense - until something is found. And then the real expense will start, particularly if a deep water recovery is involved.

Someone's said it before me - this could end end up costing a lot of governments and as many airlines huge amounts of money. Which means it will end up costing us, the travelling public, huge amounts of money as well.

If terrorists are involved, the aircraft - or more likely its wreck site - could be many thousands of miles away from the current search area.

Example of crew incapacitation in case of a fire
 

For our guest forum viewers, just to give an example of how quickly the situation can overcome a flight crew in case of a fire. (I do not directly speculate / cross-reference to this report in connection with flight MH370)

UPS Airlines Flight 6 Final accident report (source GCAA, PDF):

http://www.gcaa.gov.ae/en/ePublicati...013%202010.pdf

@keypilot

Actually not a fact. The wreckage was spotted after TWO days but it took another 3 days to get vessels to the scene.

That very scenario was correctly identified on this very Board.

As a pilot, I *think* we can discard a couple of theories suggested recently:

1. "Urgent", but not instantaneously critical situation, eventually leading to crash. If the aircraft had some kind of failure that eventually led to the aircraft descending and crashing, the pilots would have almost certainly made a mayday call. The first duty of any pilot is to deal with the situation at hand, "aviate", but once it is clear that the situation is serious, almost any professional pilot is going to take a few seconds to make a radio call in the blind. That is ingrained in training. We just do it. We've all had to do it at one stage or another coming up through our training. It's almost automatic and it doesn't stop you diagnosing the problem and taking action. Unless it is so bad that the plane is literally falling apart or you genuinely have lost all radio contact without notice, which would be highly unusual.

2. "Hypoxia". Once on autopilot, which the aircraft would have been in cruise at FL350, even an explosive depressurization would have left the plane in cruise all the way to Vietnam, at which point the transponder would have started responding to radar pings. And of course, worst case, the plane keeps cruising and runs out of fuel way up in mainland China. It's not just going to disappear.

Four search days have gone and there's no trace along the route of flight. An enormous aircraft. 12 year old 777 in calm weather from a carrier with a good safety record. I can't think of any more likely scenario, than, as much as I hate to suggest it, but it all points to...an instantanous catastrophic event, e.g. bomb.

All things considered and in the absence of any information, am I alone in thinking that this the most likely cause?

There is, on average, a handful every decade. Fortunately, almost all are prevented:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeli...ombing_attacks

When most people think of an airline bomb attack, I'd say they'd think of Lockerbie in 1988. Probably because it was Pan Am and a 747. But there's been a few since then.

I just can't think of a more likely scenario at this stage, however unfortunate. 777's have an exceptional track record.

I'm a SLF living in Malaysia with a brother who is a pilot with another airline in Malaysia.

I'm not certain if anyone has seen this piece of news yet about the search in the Straits of Malacca. thhttp://www.malaysiakini.com/news/256723

The source is Malaysiakini which is viewable on paid subscription. I've cut and pasted the article here ( I hope that is ok mods)


The search for Malaysian Airlines MH307 plane has been expanded to Sumatran waters, north of Straits of Malacca, as military radar may have detected the missing plane in the vicinity of Pulau Perak.

A Berita Harian report today quoted the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) as saying the plane may have reversed course further than expected while on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Air Force chief Rodzali Daud (left) is quoted as saying that based on military radar readings from its station in Butterworth, MH370 may have turned west after Kota Bahru and flew past the east coast and Kedah.

"The last time the plane was detected was near Pulau Perak, in the Straits of Malacca, at 2.40am," Berita Harian quotes Rodzali as saying.

This contradicts with earlier reports that the aircraft had disappeared from radar screens 120 nautical miles off Kota Bharu and over the South China Sea, at 1.30am on March 8.

The Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) had previously said the search for the Boeing 777-200ER aircraft, which is missing for the fourth day, had previously been focused around the waters between East Malaysia and Vietnam.

Berita Harian also said that military radar noted that the plane was flying about 1,000 metres lower than its original altitude of 10,000 metres after the about turn.

There are 227 passengers, including two infants, and 12 crew members on board the plane. Of these, 152 are Chinese nationals, 38 are Malaysians and the rest are from 12 other countries.

Meanwhile, Utusan Malaysia reported that 20,000 fishermen nationwide have been roped in to help in the search-and-rescue operation.

The newspaper quoted Agriculture and Agro-based Industries Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob as saying that this would involve 1,788 fishing boats around the waters off Kelantan, Terengganu, Perlis, Perak and Penang.

The fishermen were roped in at the request of acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, Ismail said.

Hi,

Keypilot
Indeed if the time taken for find MH370 go not over almost 2 years :} (time to find AF447) it will not be "unprecedented"

Keeping perspective
 

Trying to keep some perspective...

Just for the search on the East side of Pensinsular Malaysia, at the quoted 100km radius search range from IGARI, spotting a seat cushion is the rough equivalent of spotting a grain of caster sugar in Central Park.

MH seats are often blue (not always - I have no idea for this a/c), so consider the sugar in Central Park might be colored green or brown to get this in some perspective of what the SAR guys are looking for.

Even assuming there are a couple of hundred seat cushions and similar size debris, that's a spilled packet of sugar in Central Park, and quite spread out after a couple of days of drifting.

The Press briefing is becoming a farce.

Stop giggling and laughing!

Think of the families..

The only problem with this theory (or any 'explosion') is that it spreads a lot of debris, more floating debris the higher the altitude. Unless they search in wrong places - no debris so far.

I made this exact mistake. This is not quite accurate; while some sort of debris were located shortly after the accident, their attribution to AF447 was later retracted, and first pieces confidently identified as belonging to AF447 were only found 5 days after the accident.

However, the key difference between AF447 and MH370 is that AF447 went down completely off the radar. People searching for AF447 had a huge area, ~400 nm in diameter, to work with, and there were lots of pieces of unrelated rubble within this area. The initial search for MH370 was based on the assumption that the aircraft (or a large part of it) disintegrated at the moment when all transmissions from both transponders ceased. If this were the case, we would've found some debris, the lesson of AF447 notwithstanding. If MH370 went down in a two-phase event, with the transponder and the ADS-B transmitter shut down a one point and the aircraft disintegrating at some different point, the debris could be almost anywhere.

Maybe I am being a little naive here, but.....

Why are Commercial Airliners not fitted with SLBs (Sonic Locator Beacons)?

Would this not make SAR Ops of this type easier at a relatively low price....

The police IG at the presser live at the moment (0715) says the known Iranian lad with the stolen passport (and his buddy) were most likely asylum seekers, not terrorists. When he didn't show up at FRA, mom called the authorities.

It was already stated this morning that the two Iranians were trying to get to Europe via china and that they have been identified

Agreed.

Very unprofessional and even sarcasm from the police minister / commander.

Several news sites now carrying reports about several different fisherman reporting a 'low flying' aircraft moving very fast just off the Malay coast. One fisherman saying that the lights were about the 'size of coconuts' which is why he knew it was very low. Apparently these reports are why the search area has now been expanded to include areas of land.

It would appear that they really have no idea what general area this aircraft went down in.

If indeed this was the aircraft flying low back towards Malaysia then it must be a deliberate act to turn around, descend and then crash the aircraft...... of course these reports could be completely false as eye witnesses are historically very very bad sources when it comes to aircraft accidents.

Since they are looking west of Malaysia I suspect they have ACARS data. But why is it kept so secret, or don't have any data, is a mystery.

Malaysian officials non-committal on MH370 ACARS transmissions - 3/11/2014 - Flight Global

ACARS is "broadcast" and unencrypted, anyone can receive and decode the messages.

Quite some number of pages back I made a post that has disappeared as completely as MH370.

The initial press release from MH stated clearly that the a/c lost contact with Subang ATC at 0240 local time. This was also posted on page 1 of this thread. It has not been redacted to the best of my knowledge.

The transponder supposedly stopped at 0121 local. One hour and twenty minutes creates a rather large search area from the point at which the transponder ceased transmitting.

Clearly something is known that has not been shared yet.

Wrong direction?
 

Is it possible that the entire flight from KL was on the wrong heading? is this the reason why the search in Mallacca Strait?

No offense intended.