Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 missing with 239 aboard. (mechanic, military)

[NewbiePoster]

Originally Posted by ssww;

It's not a fact. It's a speculation.

Originally Posted by Tatooine

NBC is saying that they know the plane was programmed to make that turn at least 12 minutes before the co-pilot made his last transmission and before ACARS was turned off (the information was sent along a ACARS transmission). However, the article says that sometimes pilots program an alternate route before takeoff in case of an emergency. Anyone know how commons this is?

How do we define "fact" and "speculation" for this case? Too many sources and authorities have been saying the turnabout in route was due to computer programming. They must have a good basis for making that judgment. Or do we assume that nobody knows what they're talking about for sure? This is getting confusing.

[Mistermobile]

Originally Posted by ssww

If there was fire, how could someone have calmly said "Alright, good night"? And no passenger tried to make calls?

The cell phone behavior makes it look like either the passengers were instantly incapacitated/overcome by hijackers or mechanical failure of the plane, or were deceptively reassured that everything was fine and that they were just diverting to somewhere for legitimate reason. (In either case, the small comfort is that the passengers may have suffered little fear before passing out/passing away.)

Talking heads are being politically correct and fail to mention the fate of the passengers in their spiels. I am trying to imagine 238 people on that flight sitting calmly for six to seven hours waiting until the jet either lands or crashes. The maneuvers of the jet would have been noticed by the cabin crew; surely the pilot was not taking meal or bath room breaks, wasn't allowing access or answering the intercom.

The events of 9/11 are world-wide knowledge so my best guess would be that the passengers and crew if alive would make every effort to get to the pilot, armored door or not. The experts I have read discount cell phones since there would be no service. Presumably some passenger had a satellite telephone? They aren't that expensive, and more importantly how would the pilot know what the passengers had? The passengers and cabin crew were a liability to a hi jacker.

[Windwalker2]

Originally Posted by Mistermobile

Talking heads are being politically correct and fail to mention the fate of the passengers in their spiels. I am trying to imagine 238 people on that flight sitting calmly for six to seven hours waiting until the jet either lands or crashes. The maneuvers of the jet would have been noticed by the cabin crew; surely the pilot was not taking meal or bath room breaks, wasn't allowing access or answering the intercom.

I wouldn't call it political correctness exactly. I'm not sure what it is. But the fate of the passengers doesn't get much attention. Maybe since all the news people fly a lot, they don't want to think about what it might have been like for the passengers, whatever it was that happened. Maybe it ended quickly for them.

But there is so little known for sure, I don't think we can say anything definitive about any of it any more. Seems like every time something seems likely, a key piece of information is later contradicted.

[newbie09]

I've been following this story for days now. Tonight watching a news show which discussed a theory that involves no suicide or sabotage/terrorism planning by either pilot-- what if a fire occured on this plane? And the pilots were simply trying to fight the smoke & trying to turn back to a runway on the Malaysian peninsula, with no time to make a distress call? In this case, the transponder & other communications systems might have shut down simply due to fire damage. And the pilots (and everyone else) might have been overcome by smoke/fumes. Then maybe the plane just kept flying till it crashed into the ocean (either due to fire/smoke damage or running out of fuel.)

Several commentators expressed doubts about this due to these suspicious occurences-- the programming of a different flight path before the final communication & the supposed deliberate turning off of the transponder/other communications systems plus the lack of distress calls/signals and suspicious way the plane was later flown (low under radar, etc.)

My thoughts: couldn't there be a COMBINATION of an INITIAL PLAN (for sabotage or suicide or terrorism by one or both pilots) followed by a LATER UNFORESEEN EVENT (or several events) which prevented the plan from being carried out??

Even with so many steps allegedly taken to complete a malicious plan (including possibly incapacitating or killing all the passengers, crew, even the other pilot), isn't it possible that afterwards, with only one pilot remaining alive on that plane, while trying to complete the Plan, he could have been incapacitated by something (smoke from a fire? lack of oxygen? heart attack or stroke?) and then the plane just ran out of fuel & crashed into the ocean? (Or he was flying north at a low level & crashed into a remote mountaintop?)

Hey, it's also possible that the initial plan was not terrorism or stealing the plan but was suicide. Maybe he planned to kill himself in some grand manner to make a statement against the Malaysian ruling party (which he was fighting against?) but he kept putting off the suicide till the plane ran out of fuel & crashed into the ocean? (or he possibly took pills to knock himself out before then?)

What I'm arguing is that even if there was some initial plot to steal this plane (for terrorism or some other purpose) which led to all the suspicious behavior, there's also a chance that this plan couldn't be completed due either to unforeseen events such as fire/other damage to plane or sudden physical incapacitation of the lone pilot. Or there was a simple change of mind about carrying out the Plan. (Or the original plan was simply to commit suicide, which still might involve suspicious behavior ahead of time, possibly to purposedly throw certain people off track?)

If my theory is correct, that would explain the initial suspicious behavior followed by the plane completely vanishing-- with it most likely deep at the bottom of the Indian Ocean (in a remote spot & possibly not to be found found for years...)

[Tatooine]

Of the pilots here, how common is it to enter an alternate route into the navigation computer in the case of an emergency? Is it standard practice?

[Ruth4Truth]

Yes, it's possible there was an initial plan that went awry. It could have crashed in the ocean, or it could have crashed in the Himalayas, like the plane that crashed in the Andes long ago, and was discovered 30 years later, after glaciers started to melt.

If it crashed in the ocean and left no trace, though, it would mean there was a smooth landing, which is an extremely difficult thing to execute. The only reason Sullenberger was able to land safely on the Hudson was that he'd studied water landings for years, and even taught safety principles and water landings in pilot training. He just happened to be THE expert on water landings in the right place at the right time! (There IS a God...?)

So the pilot or co-pilot would have had to have been unusually skilled. Which is possible, but not likely. But who knows, maybe that's one thing he was practicing on the flight simulator.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by Tatooine

Of the pilots here, how common is it to enter an alternate route into the navigation computer in the case of an emergency? Is it standard practice?

And let's not forget that the change in route was programmed to be executed at the precise point when monitoring of the flight was passing from Malaysia to Vietnam. They still don't know if that was pure coincidence or not, but they're taking it as an indication that there was a heck of a lot of prior planning and calculating done.

Somewhere in one of the reports recently I saw the comment that either someone really knew their stuff to the last detail, or there were a lot of unusual coincidences.

[TwoByFour]

Originally Posted by newbie09

I've been following this story for days now. Tonight watching a news show which discussed a theory that involves no suicide or sabotage/terrorism planning by either pilot-- what if a fire occured on this plane? And the pilots were simply trying to fight the smoke & trying to turn back to a runway on the Malaysian peninsula, with no time to make a distress call? In this case, the transponder & other communications systems might have shut down simply due to fire damage. And the pilots (and everyone else) might have been overcome by smoke/fumes. Then maybe the plane just kept flying till it crashed into the ocean (either due to fire/smoke damage or running out of fuel.)


My thoughts: couldn't there be a COMBINATION of an INITIAL PLAN (for sabotage or suicide or terrorism by one or both pilots) followed by a LATER UNFORESEEN EVENT (or several events) which prevented the plan from being carried out??



If my theory is correct, that would explain the initial suspicious behavior followed by the plane completely vanishing-- with it most likely deep at the bottom of the Indian Ocean (in a remote spot & possibly not to be found found for years...)

I don't get why all these elaborate schemes are proposed. Occam's Razor says the simplest explanation is the most likely explanation. The simplest, by far, is that one of the pilots, for whatever reason, hijacked the plane and all the passengers. No bizarre scenarios are needed, it fits the facts. We may never know why, but it is nevertheless the simplest scenario.

[Woof]

Originally Posted by Mistermobile

Talking heads are being politically correct and fail to mention the fate of the passengers in their spiels. I am trying to imagine 238 people on that flight sitting calmly for six to seven hours waiting until the jet either lands or crashes. The maneuvers of the jet would have been noticed by the cabin crew; surely the pilot was not taking meal or bath room breaks, wasn't allowing access or answering the intercom.

The events of 9/11 are world-wide knowledge so my best guess would be that the passengers and crew if alive would make every effort to get to the pilot, armored door or not. The experts I have read discount cell phones since there would be no service. Presumably some passenger had a satellite telephone? They aren't that expensive, and more importantly how would the pilot know what the passengers had? The passengers and cabin crew were a liability to a hi jacker.

It's believed (not certain) that the crew simply depressurized the plane, which would have killed the passengers after 20 minutes when their oxygen ran out (the pilots have a much bigger supply of oxygen that would last for hours).

Originally Posted by PokerMunkee

Surely they can download satellite images from 7am when it went missing and have a super computer find anything that looks like an airplane in the search area. If it was flying at 500mph, don't know what that would look like or if it could capture it. Maybe they record video at 30fps!

Interesting thought. If there was a spy satellite passing overhead at the time of the last ping, it should be easy enough to locate the still-flying plane with a supercomputer search ...... after all, it would present a nice silhouette in contrast to the ocean.

It may be simply that "we" already know what has happened to it, and for some reason concerning the geopolitical situation, our fearless leaders have decided to keep it secret.

[Woof]

Well, at any rate, in case some of you haven't heard: The plane was executing the turn before the co-pilot calmly said good night. It wasn't just that they put in the programming before the turn, they actually started turning some minutes beforehand.