Hi,

Terrorism ...
Why a terrorist will take the risk to use a stolen passport ..
It increases the risk to be arrested at the control post .....
Logic ?

If he is on some kind of No-Fly list - or equivalent, using a stolen passport (if he knows there are no checks if it is stolen) is less risky.

If there was terrorist involvement, who says they had to be travelling on stolen or false documents? Those could be coincidental (people smuggling or other) and the party involved boarded under their real name and document? Just a thought...

I'm convinced they are looking in the wrong place.

Regardless of "what" happened on board, if the flight continued for any length of time the search area becomes vast. If it came down at fuel exhaustion then the crash site could be nearly 3000 miles away - in any direction.

Vietnam is 1 hour behind Malaysia so 1:22 is 2:22 Malaysia time.

Sixty hours on my post #999 summarizing what we know (http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/5...ml#post8362282) has not changed one bit...

I would not want to venture out to any speculation based on zero facts, but every passed hour without any wreckage sighting reduces the likelihood of some catastrophic event at/near point of last contact, and increases the chances of the aircraft having continued under some degree of control away from that point. Of course the latter if true eliminates several of proposed scenarios and raises a whole lot of uncomfortable other questions.

I'm sure a lot of heads are stuck together right now pouring over primary military radar and satellite surveillance data, but I'm sure they will not tell us what they see (if anything). However given the location of last contact, after only a little altitude loss even the primary signals would have been lost. Now if one plots the potential area outside the coverage of any primary radar station and within six hour's range, that is a sizable patch to comb through...

The emergancy slides which can be detached and used as a life raft are normally grey or yellow in colour. The purpose built lift raft that all over water ETOPS aircraft carry are illuminace yellow or orange to make them easier for SAR to spot, international regs would not allow them to be any other colour.

Could possibly be a slide that inflated on impact or by a survivor...

12:40 -depart KLIA
1.22 -Fail to chk in with HCM
2:41 -Subang ATC 'lost contact'


Time-line is not right

Totally agree Codyblade.
This is something I commented on immediately the details were released.

Our system shows it at 35000 feet around 1710 GMT other trackers continued to see it until around 1720 by which time it was out at sea.

Official reports say it was lost around 1840.....but by that time it would have been 4-500 miles north of where they are searching.
The search area correlates with a time of around 1720-30 GMT.


Of course trackers only track the avionics , not the a/c .... so the a/c may well have continued having suffered a systems loss , but this is an area of intense military interest . DSP satellites watch this region closely for flashes and bursts of radiation relating to missile launches etc....and there
may well have been operational ocean bound radar platforms

It seems pretty obvious to me that military observers know much more than they are letting on.

Deliberate act?
 

What if;

- Top of climb, cruise checks done, either pilot goes to the lav for a long overdue, midnight
pee.

- Said pilot disabled in fwd galley, flight deck access obtained by accomplice.

OR, access gained when coffee being brought up front with insufficient vigilance....

- Disableing of pilot(s).

From there on only a very basic knowledge/training should enable these perps to deactivate the two major systems that actively send signals to the ground with position and other data.

- Descend/climb 500' and set a heading of choice. Only method of detection would be
primary returns.

There could be numerous reasons for wanting to keep an aircraft flyable for several hours and the end game could be either a 9/11 type scenario, an opportunistic attempt at kidnapping, extortion, theft, industrial sabotage etc. However, while the initial few minutes of the takeover could be achieved with little or no aviation knowledge the guys now at the controls might be in over their heads and not able to get to their end game...

Despite the traGedy, I am enjoying this thread and this mystery. The most entertaining posts are the ones writing novels about MH370, "below 500 ft they slowed to V1, landed and water seeped in through the cracks in the fuselage, then they sank".

The (apparent) lack of transponder data and comms means one of two things:

-MH 370 suffered a catastrophic failure taking out all electrics. Fast. What are the odds? Cockpit fire? No, not that fast. Not a decompression. Not a flight upset. A bomb, a missile or a midair.

-MH 370 was hijacked and systems switched off. By passengers or by the operating pilot(s). What happened after is anyones guess.

My money is on option #2.

08:25 UK time.

BBC radio has just said that SAR helicopters have been scrambled as there has been a possible sighting of a yellow object.

Maybe a liferaft?

Not much other information given as yet.

08:36 update, Vietnam waters and helicopters. Object reported seen with-in last hour. BBC saying liferaft.

ATC will exercise all possible contact options before they declare a distress phase. That is the most probable reason for the delay.

My bad re old news!.:ouch::ouch::ouch:

The cockpit fire scenario ? How long would the plane fly on with all electrics disabled, Cockpit crew incapacitated or deceased?

Before this post goes into another 50 replies cycle as it already did twice on this thread:
Loss of transponder signal at 1:21 (closer to 1:22)
Subang center INFORMED MAS on loss of contact at 2:40 (2:41 by some sources)

In the intervening 1 hour 20 minutes both Sebang and HCM were trying to make contact with the aircraft. Only when the aircraft did not appear in range of Vietnamese primary radar was the alarm raised. Loss of transponder signal and communications happens on a daily basis somewhere in the world, with the aircraft usually appearing further down it's flight path and the crew mumbling a faint sorry to ATC.

In all fairness, SAR action should have commenced no later than 01:37. It wasn't just a Comms failure, they disappeared off the screen!

Without agreeing or disagreeing with the inference
I presume he was referring to this....

How Mail On Sunday 'printed' first plastic gun in UK - and then took it on board Eurostar without being stopped in security scandal | Mail Online

"12:40 -depart KLIA
1.22 -Fail to chk in with HCM
2:41 -Subang ATC 'lost contact'


Time-line is not right"


HCM is on the same time as BKK/CGK, which is one hour BEHIND KUL/HKG/SIN time. These times could be LOCAL, which would make the time lines very different.

Re: the times
 

I've just watched the main BBC News this morning. Roving BBC reporter just fresh out of press conference in KL. Quote: "........the plane was 2 hours into its flight....". Doh!
How many hours since the flight and they still can't get it right?!

Re earlier reports of a yellow object being spotted.

Latest is that it is not connected to the current search.

BBC radio 08:55.

Sorry if I raised anyone's hopes. I rather hoped it would be a positive sighting.

Nearby countries all seeming to be sending assets to assist. Hope they don't trip over each other, especially in this sensitive maritime area. Even Taiwan is sending vessels to assist.

Hard to believe a plane would turn to dust at high altitude (as someone previously suggested ) with anything short of a nuclear explosion. And for sure one of those would NOT have gone undetected. So that basically rules out that theory.

They just need to expand their search area. Especially if the plane was hijacked and flown at low levels for hundreds of miles over water.