Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Here's what Goodfellow says about the transponder in relation to his fire theory:
... (I am not going to repeat it here. Too long. I encourage you to look at the original link....)
I read that whole thread spawned by Chris Goodfellow. It was very interesting and well thought out, but his original post was made several days ago and has problems standing up in light of recent reports of what look like evasive maneuvers by 370 and other facts of the case. Chris makes some updates on recent information but if you read through the whole thread, his scenario requires a lot of serendipity - many things have to happen just right for it all to work out. It could be true, I don't know. But it is not a slam dunk either. Of course neither is any other theory out there.
I used to think this was a suicide. I think that is still plausible and perhaps the most likely scenario, but this whole thing is so utterly bizarre it will likely never be resolved without some sort of smoking gun.
Of course it is all a fascination for us, with no stake in the outcome. The real tragedy is what the families have to go through. They may never have resolution and closure on this. Very sad.
I read that whole thread spawned by Chris Goodfellow. It was very interesting and well thought out, but his original post was made several days ago and has problems standing up in light of recent reports of what look like evasive maneuvers by 370 and other facts of the case. Chris makes some updates on recent information but if you read through the whole thread, his scenario requires a lot of serendipity - many things have to happen just right for it all to work out. It could be true, I don't know. But it is not a slam dunk either. Of course neither is any other theory out there.
I used to think this was a suicide. I think that is still plausible and perhaps the most likely scenario, but this whole thing is so utterly bizarre it will likely never be resolved without some sort of smoking gun.
Of course it is all a fascination for us, with no stake in the outcome. The real tragedy is what the families have to go through. They may never have resolution and closure on this. Very sad.
Thanks for your input. According to the latest report, they've ruled out suicide. My inclination would be to say they don't know anything for sure, but there have been a lot of experts analyzing all the info for a week now, and they feel sure it was a hijacking. See the new thread in the Asia forum for details.
I'd still like to think that everyone survived. I suppose it could turn into one of those permanently unsolved mysteries, but I hope not. Still, if it was a hijacking, someone was very smart, and very well-connected to be able to deliver a plane to an airstrip somewhere without it being reported.
Here's what Goodfellow says about the transponder in relation to his fire theory:
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.
If this was a sinister plot, I'm sure the hijackers had a simple piece of equipment to block or jam all cell phone usage.
The plane is either at the bottom of the ocean or there were several or a group of highly valuable people on that plane and everyone else executed. I don't think you pull something like this that draws the worlds attention bc you want to steal a plane. It heightens global security to the point of rendering the plane useless.
Question for those knowledgable....is there some type of weapon or missile that could have hit this plane that basically makes it explode to the point of no debris? I ask bc it seems as if it crashed into ocean, there would be debris. But if a country's defense (eg navy) determined the plane was hijacked, they could have shot it down. And no one wants to deal with shooting 20 Chinese citizens and an American citizen out of the sky which is why they would not be forthcoming.
Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
8,297 posts, read 14,163,488 times
Reputation: 8105
Quote:
Originally Posted by joeymags
....... But if a country's defense (eg navy) determined the plane was hijacked, they could have shot it down. And no one wants to deal with shooting 20 Chinese citizens and an American citizen out of the sky which is why they would not be forthcoming.
I've thought that. Yes, maybe it was determined to be headed toward some high-value target, and shot down. It wouldn't even have to have been completely obliterated if it were in that country's territory, because they'd just pretend to "search" for it.
But if a country's defense (eg navy) determined the plane was hijacked, they could have shot it down. And no one wants to deal with shooting 20 Chinese citizens and an American citizen out of the sky which is why they would not be forthcoming.
Hey, Aussies and Russians (etc.) are valuable, too!
There was speculation that there was some top-secret cargo that someone wanted, not necessarily human cargo.
I find it odd that there were so many potentially suspicious characters on the flight, but maybe that's not so unusual for that part of Asia, where people say security is lax...? There were two Iranians travelling on stolen passports. At some point someone said there was a black/African guy and someone else travelling to Europe on stolen passports, as asylum-seekers. There was a Uighur guy travelling on a legit passport. And those are just the ones we know about. Not counting the two pilots, also under suspicion. Is it normal for there to be so many stolen passports floating around? Several on the same flight? Or did I get it wrong?
Thanks for your input. According to the latest report, they've ruled out suicide.
Are you saying they found the black boxes? Or a witness who was on the plane? Because otherwise nothing can be ruled out. Some things are more likely but nothing can be ruled out. Who exactly made this determination? Provide a link to the source please.
Aircraft lands in the middle of the night at Diego Garcia where there's a general lockdown for something or another, and taxis straight into a hangar where the doors are shut, the aircraft has logos painted over solid white, an N number is stenciled on the tail, it's refueled in the hangar (against the rules of course, but they don't care about any of that), it's pushed out and takes off before dawn.
Why? High value Chinese computer scientist? What about the other passengers? Disappeared? Impossible?
Really? Maybe you have to be signed up for Google+ to be able to view it. I'll see if I can find another way to access it.
Here's a summary, from a blog
The Pulau Langkawi possibility. Over the weekend Chris Goodfellow, an experienced pilot, offered via Google+ a very different sort of explanation. Far from carrying out an elaborate scheme, he says, the pilots may have been caught by surprise by an inflight fire, a major systems failure, or some other genuine emergency. At that point they called on the reflex nearly all pilots develop: the constantly updated awareness of where the nearest airport is, if they should suddenly need to get back to the ground. As he puts it:
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.
When trouble arose, Goodfellow says, the pilots tried to head for what they knew to be the nearest very long runway, with an unobstructed over-water approach, on the Malaysian island of Pulau Langkawi. (Pulau means "island.") Here's the Google Earth idea of how the Langkawi runway might look in daylight, although the plane was of course approaching at night. That runway is 13,000 feet long -- enormous.
But they never made it. Before getting the plane down, Goodfellow suggests, the pilots could have been incapacitated -- and the plane would fly on until it ran out of fuel. This view is notable for the light it casts on the MH 370 flight crew. Far from being villains, schemers, or the objects of a hijacking plan, he says they were in fact heroes, struggling until the last to save their aircraft, themselves, and the 237 other souls on board. Referring to the senior pilot, he says:
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....
Fire in an aircraft demands one thing - you get the machine on the ground as soon as possible....
Smart pilot. Just didn't have the time.
Goodfellow says he is certain this is what happened: "No doubt in my mind." I think there's doubt about everything concerning this flight. But his explanation makes better sense than anything else I've heard so far. (And he has updated it in light of developments since his original post.) It's one of the few that make me think, Yes, I could see things happening that way.
This goes hand in hand with a link that I harped on about on March 09, and still refuse to let go of, at present. It was the one that said there was a military base that picked up an emergency call from the plane, something about cabin disintegration, and that the pilot wanted a forced landing. (Assuming it was the pilot, who knows.)
Anyway, I'm paraphrasing, of course, and it was from a translated page...everyone keeps dismissing that, but you know what? Nothing makes sense at this time, and it is not any more "far fetched" than anything anyone else is saying. The fact that it was taken down so quickly, (that's not all the link said, that was merely one paragraph I took notice of), and the fact that no one has talked about that, makes me keep hanging on to it. In a world that makes sense, I would let it go, but none of this makes sense, so it sits there.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
