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Back to motive, now that we know the pilot was the one giving the last goodbye, do you think the co-pilot was already dead? I just don't see how his master plan was to have this plane run out of fuel and crash into the ocean. Why would the pilot want to end things that way? He just didn't seem suicidal to me, I mean, it would be just as terrifying to him to end his life that way.
Has anyone heard anything more about them scrambling planes as soon as they knew the 777 was off track and missing? I heard last night that MA came out and reported they did scramble planes. What else are they not telling us...
Do we know what the autopilot system priorities are for the Boeing 777?
As we know, the plane went flying for hours and hours until it likely ran out of fuel. Once the aircraft ran out of fuel, the engines would shut down, and the plane would maintain altitude as airspeed bled off...but as the aircraft approaches stall speed, I would imagine the priority of the automation would be to prevent the stall, and a descent would likely start at minimum airspeed. I'd be curious what the airspeed and descent rates would be, but if less than a few hundred feet per minute, it's always possible that much of the airplane stayed intact before crashing on the bottom of the ocean...
That sounds right, flynavyj. Thankfully, I don't often have the need to look up autopilot logic once both engines have shut down so I can't say for certain. I can dig around in the schematics for the autopilot but whatever response I give would have to be very vague. Boeing doesn't like it when you get on the internet and blab about all their high-tech 20-year old tech.
I do sort of have a gut feeling that the plane landed harshly enough to at least break off the empennage section of the aircraft. If the plane sunk as a whole, I can't imagine the 38.5kHz tone transmitting through an enclosed aircraft body (even if we assume a nice crumple factor for the deep sea pressures) and then making it all the way up to the pinger detectors two miles above. I know water is a lovely medium through which sound can travel, I just think it would play hell on the acoustics. Then again, maybe that's why they're hearing it and losing it.
Well, alot of people think the pilot planned this all out, I doubt it was a spontaneous act if he is the villain in this (and that is still a big IF). Seems like he had a plan to turn south and avoid land and radar....
if something mechanical happened on the plane, I think it would have made more sense to try and set the plane down on land rather than sure death in the ocean.
Well, alot of people think the pilot planned this all out, I doubt it was a spontaneous act if he is the villain in this (and that is still a big IF). Seems like he had a plan to turn south and avoid land and radar....
if something mechanical happened on the plane, I think it would have made more sense to try and set the plane down on land rather than sure death in the ocean.
^ this
it likely was an experienced operator at the controls as there appears to be a deliberate set of maneuvers that were performed to seemingly avoid detection. The most obvious explanation (usually the right one) was the pilot committed suicide (screw everyone else, happens all the time) and wanted to cover his tracks for the insurance pay-out.
the co-pilot was relatively inexperienced in this aircraft.
the co-pilot was recently engaged.
that pilot knew exactly where he was going and put the plane on the surface above one of the largest trenches of the Indian Ocean. Even if they do catch the last sounds of a dying transmitter, they'll never find it in the blackness that exists at the bottom of that trench.
for the numbskull that suggested some sort of bomb took this plane, go back to your comic books and quit embarassing yourself.
Well, alot of people think the pilot planned this all out, I doubt it was a spontaneous act if he is the villain in this (and that is still a big IF). Seems like he had a plan to turn south and avoid land and radar....
if something mechanical happened on the plane, I think it would have made more sense to try and set the plane down on land rather than sure death in the ocean.
Perhaps but if he had a plan and it went wrong, there really wasn't a need to fly the plane until it ran out of fuel, it isn't like there was going to be some trial or anything, there are all dead.
A master plan would imply there was a statement to make, an axe to grind or something like that. Given that and deciding to kill everyone on board or take the plane and go after whatever was the focus of the pilot seems to be an easy choice, I mean if you're going to kill hundreds anyway.
There wasn't any indication he was crazy or mentally challenged. A joy ride seems far fetched, plenty of easier ways to do that.
With the radar thing, motive always comes up, avoid radar to what end? So what if radar tracked him, it isn't like anyone could stop the 777, not like it would get shot down flying out over the ocean or anything like that.
That is one question I haven't heard even discussed. If the pilot was deliberately trying to avoid radar, why? Just to crash the plane and hope no one would find it doesn't fit. We have a reasonable cause to believe the black boxes weren't disabled unless those pings turn out to be nothing.
If a pilot wants to crash a plane full of people, being tracked by radar doesn't matter, there is no way to stop them from doing whatever they have in mind unless the plane gets shot down. Who would shoot down a plane headed out over the ocean when it could be easily shot down if it turned to be used as a weapon?
I will say though, that if there was some ulterior motive on part of the pilot, one reason could be that this was a test run to see if a plane like the 777 could avoid radar for use in a future mission.
I have not read through these 272 pages on this post- but regardless of avoiding radar or whatever we have thousands of satellite systems up in space from all nations where they take millions of photos at various distances and have other resources that somehow a big, huge plane just vanished. Especially sight the reports show this plane flew for hours after dropping off the radar...things just don't make since....
I am so sorry for the families that are dealing with this horror.
That is one question I haven't heard even discussed. If the pilot was deliberately trying to avoid radar, why? Just to crash the plane and hope no one would find it doesn't fit. We have a reasonable cause to believe the black boxes weren't disabled unless those pings turn out to be nothing.
The "why" for avoiding radar in the beginning was linked to the hijack theory. Initially it was believed that the Uighur passenger hijacked the plane. Then theories popped up that the pilot hijacked his own plane. If it were a hijacking, that would explain the need to avoid radar. However, eventually other reasons for flying low were proposed: keeping the plane oxygenated if oxygen systems failed or were depleted (if passengers were alive, or perhaps for the pilot's sake). Another reason was the need to land the plane at Langkawi, which at one point it was believed he "overshot" that airport and missed his chance.
So, as always, we really don't know, and any theory could be proposed to explain any cryptic detail.
I think Malaysia is embarrassed because they don't have a clue what happened, so blame everything on the pilot.
The most logical answer is he knew the plane was in trouble (also knew he was in trouble along with his passengers) so he he flew a different flight path that wasn't so busy, also avoiding land to protect innocent people on the ground. Hoping to make it to a safe out of the way landing strip but he didn't last that long, put it on auto pilot in a dying effort hoping it would crash in the sea rather than civilization.
As far as killing himself for insurance money, why would he? He had a great job and 2 homes, sure he would get a nice pension and a good enough pilot to teach or whatever pilots do when they retire.
I think the "avoiding radar" thing is a big joke to try to trick us into thinking they really knew what they were doing all along, yeah sure...
Not really. The "black box" is a component just like any other component on an aircraft. They can go bad but it's rare. I've changed a handful of them in my life but it's certainly not an everyday occurrence. Also, on most aircraft there is a component called a DFDAU (Digital Flight Data Acquisition Unit) that receives all the raw analog signals on the aircraft, converts them to digital and then feeds them to the flight recorder. Those are slightly more prone to failure but even so it's not often I change them.
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what master plan?
