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MH370 A different point of view. Pulau Langkawi 13,000 runway.
A lot of speculation about MH370. Terrorism, hijack, meteors. I cannot believe the analysis on CNN - almost disturbing. I tend to look for a more simple explanation of this event.
Loaded 777 departs midnight from Kuala to Beijing. Hot night. Heavy aircraft. About an hour out across the gulf towards Vietnam the plane goes dark meaning the transponder goes off and secondary radar tracking goes off.
Two days later we hear of reports that Malaysian military radar (which is a primary radar meaning the plane is being tracked by reflection rather than by transponder interrogation response) has tracked the plane on a southwesterly course back across the Malay Peninsula into the straits of Malacca.
When I heard this I immediately brought up Google Earth and I searched for airports in proximity to the track towards southwest.
The left turn is the key here. This was a very experienced senior Captain with 18,000 hours. Maybe some of the younger pilots interviewed on CNN didn't pick up on this left turn. We old pilots were always drilled to always know the closest airport of safe harbor while in cruise. Airports behind us, airports abeam us and airports ahead of us. Always in our head. Always. Because if something happens you don't want to be thinking what are you going to do - you already know what you are going to do. Instinctively when I saw that left turn with a direct heading I knew he was heading for an airport. Actually he was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi a 13,000 foot strip with an approach over water at night with no obstacles. He did not turn back to Kuala Lampur because he knew he had 8,000 foot ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier towards Langkawi and also a shorter distance.
Take a look on Google Earth at this airport. This pilot did all the right things. He was confronted by some major event onboard that made him make that immediate turn back to the closest safe airport.
For me the loss of transponders and communications makes perfect sense if a fire. There was most likely a fire or electrical fire. In the case of fire the first response if to pull all the main busses and restore circuits one by one until you have isolated the bad one.
If they pulled the busses the plane indeed would go silent. It was probably a serious event and they simply were occupied with controlling the plane and trying to fight the fire. Aviate, Navigate and lastly communicate. There are two types of fires. Electrical might not be as fast and furious and there might or might not be incapacitating smoke. However there is the possibility given the timeline that perhaps there was an overheat on one of the front landing gear tires and it blew on takeoff and started slowly burning. Yes this happens with underinflated tires. Remember heavy plane, hot night, sea level, long run takeoff. There was a well known accident in Nigeria of a DC8 that had a landing gear fire on takeoff. A tire fire once going would produce horrific incapacitating smoke. Yes, pilots have access to oxygen masks but this is a no no with fire. Most have access to a smoke hood with a filter but this will only last for a few minutes depending on the smoke level. (I used to carry one of my own in a flight bag and I still carry one in my briefcase today when I fly).
What I think happened is that they were overcome by smoke and the plane just continued on the heading probably on George (autopilot) until either fuel exhaustion or fire destroyed the control surfaces and it crashed. I said four days ago you will find it along that route - looking elsewhere was pointless.
This pilot, as I say, was a hero struggling with an impossible situation trying to get that plane to Langkawi. No doubt in my mind. That's the reason for the turn and direct route. A hijack would not have made that deliberate left turn with a direct heading for Langkawi. It would probably have weaved around a bit until the hijackers decided on where they were taking it.
Surprisingly none of the reporters , officials, other pilots interviewed have looked at this from the pilot's viewpoint. If something went wrong where would he go? Thanks to Google earth I spotted Langkawi in about 30 seconds, zoomed in and saw how long the runway was and I just instinctively knew this pilot knew this airport. He had probably flown there many times. I guess we will eventually find out when you help me spread this theory on the net and some reporters finally take a look on Google earth and put 2 and 2 together. Also a look at the age and number of cycles on those nose tires might give us a good clue too.
Fire in an aircraft demands one thing - you get the machine on the ground as soon as possible. There are two well remembered experiences in my memory. The AirCanada DC9 which landed I believe in Columbus Ohio in the eighties. That pilot delayed descent and bypassed several airports. He didn't instinctively know the closest airports. He got it on the ground eventually but lost 30 odd souls. In the 1998 crash of Swissair DC-10 off Nova Scotia was another example of heroic pilots. They were 15 minutes out of Halifax but the fire simply overcame them and they had to ditch in the ocean. Just ran out of time. That fire incidentally started when the aircraft was about an hour out of Kennedy. Guess what the transponders and communications were shut off as they pulled the busses.
Get on Google Earth and type in Pulau Langkawi and then look at it in relation to the radar track heading. 2+2=4 That for me is the simple explanation why it turned and headed in that direction.
Smart pilot. Just didn't have the time.
I'm very sure the US and stockholders do not want it to be the airplane's fault.
The Malaysian airlines probably don't either.
Did they keep up with maintenance on the plane? Maybe not.
Now they blame the US and Indonesia behind a conspiracy!
Umno & Utusan leading M'sia to DISASTER! Now they blame Indonesia for conspiring with US to HIDE MH370
Quote:
The Indonesian media has taken aim at Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia for its report accusing the republic of being in cahoots with the US to hide the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.
Indonesian online news portal Merdeka.com quoted the senior officer for foreign affairs at Indonesia's Defence Ministry, Sumardi Brotodiningrat, as saying the allegation was "funny".
Sumardi said Indonesia was already doing what it could to assist Malaysia to find the missing aircraft, with which radar communication was lost over the Gulf of Thailand at 1.30am on March 8.
"Aren't we one of the 25 countries that have been helping them out up until now?" he is quoted by Merdeka.com as asking.
Sumardi stressed that the republic has no knowledge about the plane's whereabouts and that the allegation by the Malaysian newspaper had to be explained.
The Merdeka.com headline, "Funny, Indonesia blamed for working with US to hide MH370" was subsequently picked up by Yahoo Indonesia.
Utusan last Sunday quoted Cabal Times as claiming that Flight MH370 was hidden by the US at its base in Diego Garcia.
The report added that if this were true, Indonesian radar would have picked up the plane.
"But the question is, Indonesia is believed to be part of the 'secret globalisation' movement or Western alliance with certain agenda and would certainly remain silent about whatever they detected on their radar," Utusan quoted Cabal Times as saying.
Cabal Times is a conspiracy portal, with the Eye of Providence that sits on a pyramid as its logo, which is often associated with Freemasonry and is similarly found on the US one dollar bill.
More bizzarely, a brown cow is superimposed on the symbol to complete the logo.
This, however, did not raise a red flag with the Umno-owned newspaper for citing the story. -Malaysiakini
I'm very sure the US and stockholders do not want it to be the airplane's fault.
The Malaysian airlines probably don't either.
Did they keep up with maintenance on the plane? Maybe not.
It made sense back when it was first posted early last week, but subsequent investigation of the facts of the case have debunked it. If the pilots had pulled the busses, the communication technology would have shut off at the same time. But that's not at all what happened.
It made sense back when it was first posted early last week, but subsequent investigation of the facts of the case have debunked it. If the pilots had pulled the busses, the communication technology would have shut off at the same time. But that's not at all what happened.
I have been reading the facts and see no way it was debunked.
While other theories are still being examined, the U.S. official said key evidence suggesting human intervention is that contact with the Boeing 777's transponder stopped about a dozen minutes before a messaging system on the jet quit. Such a gap would be unlikely in the case of an in-flight catastrophe.
While other theories are still being examined, the U.S. official said key evidence suggesting human intervention is that contact with the Boeing 777's transponder stopped about a dozen minutes before a messaging system on the jet quit. Such a gap would be unlikely in the case of an in-flight catastrophe.
Unlikely. Not impossible. Prior to March 8, I would have thought it unlikely that a gigantic airbus could seemingly vanish off the face of the earth. We now know, it's not impossible.
From what I'm reading, it's confirmed (as much as anything can be 'confirmed' in the rush to be the first to report it, typical media circus) that the military did know the plane was in its airspace:
It has now emerged that Malaysian primary military radar tracked an unidentified contact that flew right across the country's air space, now confirmed to be MH370. But no action, it seems, was taken.
"Where was the Malaysian air force in all this?" says former RAF pilot and aerospace analyst Andrew Brookes.
"Ever since 9/11, air defences around the world have been on alert for a hijacked airliner aiming for a prestige target. And few targets are more prestigious than the twin Petronas towers in downtown Kuala Lumpur."
According to Mr Brookes, when MH370 apparently turned back at the top of its scheduled climb without warning, alarm bells should have rung in the minds of the Malaysian military and political decision-makers.
"When this bizarre saga is over, the Malaysian government and air force will have some serious matters to address, not least in the apparent gaps in wide area surveillance of their air space," says Mr Brookes
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