@phillipa: "I think you are missing the point. Their bags were already checked and on board but removed by MH before the aircraft departed. So it is highly relevant to ask who were they? Did they ever show to collect the bags? What was in the bags?"

Not so, I believe. I believe they were checked in but it wasn't confirmed the bags were loaded. They could have been connecting passengers from another flight booked through and boarding passes issued, but they never made it to the gate. Various possibilities, including late arrival of their inbound connecting flight, would preclude them from boarding and also preclude their bags from being loaded.

"Hong Kong's Air Traffic Control Center reported on Mar 10th 2014 around 17:30L (09:30Z) that an airliner enroute on airway L642 reported via HF radio that they saw a large field of debris at position N9.72 E107.42 about 80nm southeast of Ho Chi Minh City, about 50nm off the south-eastern coast of Vietnam in the South China Sea and about 281nm northeast of the last known radar position. Ships have been dispatched to the reported debris field."

Sea depth at the reported location appears to be around only 50M, to 100M at most.

This location is a very long way from last reported position? Doesn't seem to be right.

http://oi60.tinypic.com/5fgegl.jpg

Just watching the current KL news conference. After negating another oil slick discovery and also telling reporters the 2 stolen passport suspects did not appear Asian. He reiterated that all Malaysian authority checks were conducted in accordance with policy and procedure. They seem to be very quick to non implicate their own authorities.
Surely they can't have completed investigations on their own protocols for safety and security checks.
I'm sorry but these News conferences are only getting worse. There probably needs to be a Security person briefing the Passport case and the DCA gentleman maybe stick to the ongoing search. It's tough I know . But I thought the Asiana crash news conferences held in the states were a lot better handled.

Just watching a female pilot on Sky news saying that having spoken with colleagues the most likely scenario is that the aircraft commenced a turning manouvre and the wing flexed beyond tolerance leading to structural failure, or that a short circuit started a very intense and fast spreading cockpit fire. Im sorry but where do they get these people from?

"How could they have located and removed the luggage from five no-shows already in the hold, and still leave within six minutes of scheduled departure time? "


Especially on the late flights, they are typically closing the doors 10-15 minutes ahead of scheduled departure. Either they find and offload the bags OR the passengers turn up. Whichever comes first generally. And after the longhaul heavy traffic is already gone, taxi time is very short, so its entirely possible

But five is a large number and, whilst there may be nothing at all to it, is does warrant examination. And I'm sure they have done so. Just not given out any information.

There have been so many daft posts here, both from passengers and crew. It's annoying when you see a stupid post about meteors or a conspiracy. Sometimes I think why can't these people go get their kicks and dream up theories about Emilia Earhardt or DB Cooper. But really I understand.
Psychologically it is more comforting to make up a implausible theory than to simply accept that so little is known that no conclusions can be drawn. I intend to fly in that zone next week, so this incident troubles me too.

The only thing that comforts me is my belief that with the resources that are being applied to this incident, something will be found, although it could take a while yet. The Gulf of Thailand is a big place to search. If something has happened where the aircraft has ditched and sunk in one piece then we may be waiting some time for more information.

Curiouser and curiouser. From AH:

According to the states run Chinese news agency Xinhua Chinese police established that one of the Chinese passengers listed on the manifest never left China, is still at home and in possession of his passport, therefore was not on the accident flight. The passenger's passport had not been lost or stolen, the numbers on his passport and the passport number noted on the manifest are identical however.

Malaysia's Defense Ministry said, that as result of the verified discrepancies between passenger manifest and people on board of the aircraft, the Austrian and the Italian, the entire manifest is under scrutiny. At least 4 names are suspicious and are being investigated with the participation by the FBI from the USA.

China Southern Airlines, code share partner of Malaysia Airlines, reported that they sold a total of 7 tickets for the accident flight, amongst them the tickets for the Italian and the Austrian as well as one Dutch, one Malaysian, two Ukrainians and one Chinese.

I just watched the KL news conference.
What I cannot understand is why they are concentrating all their search resources on the Malacca Strait? This would imply that they are certain the aircraft did a 180 and flew back across Malaysia. If this had been the case then they should have picked the aircraft up using their defense radar. Passengers would have been able to use cellphones at that point as well.
Extending the search in the Gulf of Thailand, or even the Gulf of Tonkin would make more sense if wreckage is really what they expect to find.

SAR Vietnam update
 

Short update at the end of today's air search in the Vietnam area:

- Vietnamese helicopter Mi-171 02 and the DHC-6 have returned to base at Phu Quoc and reported no positive sightings.

- The Director, Maritime Activities at Vung Tao port authorities reported that it had requested a passing containership to investigate the "metal debris" sightings off Vung Tao reported by a Hong Kong aircraft. However, the containership had detected no such fragments during 1730 to 1900 local time. There is a speculation the sighting may have been off nylon fishing nets or "sponges". Many fishing boats are in the area.

- Tomorrow, Vietnam plans to extend the search further northeast, apparently off the eastern coast in the South China Sea area.

- "A total of 34 aircraft and 40 vessels from various countries are involved in the search".

Source: Dan Tri via Google translate

If the fake passport holders were Africans (seems likely now ) then does that make hijacking/terrorism or people-smuggling more likely?

Given that ullage is the unfilled space in a container above the liquid, that seems unlikely.

"Not so, I believe. I believe they were checked in but it wasn't confirmed the bags were loaded. They could have been connecting passengers from another flight booked through and boarding passes issued, but they never made it to the gate. Various possibilities, including late arrival of their inbound connecting flight, would preclude them from boarding and also preclude their bags from being loaded. "


According to The Minister AND the MH Official at an earlier Press Conference, the bags from the missing passengers were on board but were located and offloaded before departure. I'm not suggesting that this is necessarily significant, just another item to check, especially if the passengers never claimed their checked bags after departure. We don't know.

Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost
 

Now SKY news are shocking at the best of times but Capt J Alexandra your five mins of fame was a joke!! I am the flight safety officer for a big airline here in SEA and we are helping MAS in any way we can everything you said made you look stupid!!:mad:

It easy, I assure you. You can remove no shows and depart on time. We do it all the time. I don't think there is any conspiracy there.

Path assumption
 

Assuming cruising at 488 kts, and the first part of the flight path being DCT PIBOS R208 IKUKO M076F290 R208 IGARI M765 BITOD, it's possible to string together the following:

Leaves KL, makes it to IGARI, makes the turn from R208 onto M765. That would be consistent with the bearing of 26 degrees seen on Flightaware (Flight Track Log ? MAS370 ? 08-Mar-2014 ? WMKK / KUL - ZBAA / PEK ? FlightAware) to IKUKO, a slight left to 17 degrees then a right turn *of* 40 degrees to 59 degrees when moving from R208 onto M765. Assume an 'event' happens at this point, the a/c is at FL350. Looking at previous threads on this forum, 100nm seems feasible for a 777 to glide (http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/10205...-can-done.html). BITOD to VCS is 173.5nm, and the debris is past that by probably 80+ miles, so what could happen?

http://i57.tinypic.com/25i0zf9.jpg

Searching the Strait of Malacca
 

Disappointing that no journalist at the latest news conference probed for an answer as to why they were searching a huge chunk of the Strait of Malacca west of Malaysia unless they had pretty firm evidence (military primary radar ?) to suggest the 777's turn-back had continued (without any other trace) for 300+ miles from the last known position en route ?

If everyone is publicly saying it disappeared at or near the IGARI waypoint they'd need a very strong suspicion or other evidence to divert the SAR effort so far away surely ?

[ Xeque I see you posted the same query while I was typing :-) ]

As a long time lurker i hope it is not too ghoulish to make my first post concerning what appears to be an awful tragedy.

However, having just watched the latest news conference I am mystified as to why they seem to have so many search areas in the Malacca Straits. It would seem more logical to extend the current search areas to the west and east of the bottom of Vietnam.

Is it normal practice to cover all bases or does this suggest they know something they have not announced ?

For tbe aircraft to have got to the Straits it would have to have flown over land - surely it would have been picked up on radar ? If it had turned around would it have not flown back on a reciprocal course as the pilot woukd figure there would be more chance of being found ?

No they cannot have been Africans, not the Italian one anyway, as he is white skinned and Malaysian airlines said the passengers who boarded checked out for the photos. May not have been a good match but likely to spot an African travelling on a Caucasian passport....

"If everyone is publicly saying it disappeared at or near the IGARI waypoint they'd need a very strong suspicion or other evidence to divert the SAR effort so far away surely?"

Agreed, I posted the same thing earlier. Also, if the aircraft was back on a Westerly track, why are they not searching the dry land on Peninsular Malaysia (I don't think the aircraft would have detoured round Singapore?!!). There is a strong suggestion here that they have a lot more information than that being announced. Which would be normal.

There is a lack of clarity on the type of surveillance data on which the last observations were made.

At the limits of coverage range, typical monopulse radar returns will continue to give good range information but with increasing bearing uncertainty. This can lead to false indication of a turn manoeuvre. ADS-B on the other hand may give increasingly intermittent coverage as the limits of the receiver range are reached, but all data decoded will be good. Error correction ensures a very low probability of path-loss data corruption.

It is important to know which type of surveillance source gave indication of a turn in those final returns.