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The whole thing in general makes no sense. I don't see catastrophic mechanical failure knocking out every system while they're able to input a new flight path into a working computer system. No radio callback, no cellphone pings, no nothing. It has been officially confirmed that the plane's flight path was manually changed. Wouldn't they just put reverse coordinates in back to their destination of origin if something was wrong?
Putting on my speculator's cap: Theories:
(1) Sophisticated inside job: Possibly by a government entity/country. Infiltrated from the grounds crew to the pilots. Something or someone was smuggled onto the plane which would be detected at another airport, so they came up with this. Extensive research was done to pull this off. The plane's systems were hacked in advance by the ground crew so that the pilots could turn them off easily. The plan was set in motion and the coordinates set to wherever the plane might have ended up. It seems like a lot of evasive work to move a few people around, so I would go with the smuggled cargo scenario. Would you really need that big of a plane to move a few illegals around in such a public way? It is still a lot of work to go through for low-grade weapons or money. Perhaps it was something much more valuable to sinister people. Either they flew it to a discreet location that is untraceable or a hanger built into a mountaintop or something. The fact that no passenger signaled out is what is curious. Would it be possible to use a jammer to block all cell signals? I haven't been following this story too intensely, but they were in contact with the airport 15 minutes before the co-pilot said "alright, good night." How long would they be in cell range for someone to notice something was wrong and texted out that things were amiss? Seems pretty ballsy to do this if you want to be stealth and not anticipate 200+ passengers to rebel. Or, it's less complicated than that and they just flew the plane right into the airspace of whatever country set this up. That country plays dumb about ever seeing a plane on their radar.
(2) Secondary governmental theory: A country's government intentionally did this to see who would blink first in revealing what kind of radar detection they would expand in finding the thing. A set up. War games. Helping hands show their cards.
(3) I don't think it was a traditional terrorist takeover. In this day and age, the passengers would've fought back, one would suspect. If that happened, it wouldn't have taken seven hours to go down and a crash site would be easier to find and closer to where they think it would be. A government would use their own planes if they wanted to try this, although putting this under the umbrella of terrorism would give them more of a shield.
(3) Pilot suicide: Hard to imagine, but I guess if that was the intent, you could set these coordinates and go the seven hours knowing how it's going to end. I don't see two pilots agreeing to do this for no reason, so one would've locked out or killed the other. If one killed the other, he would've had to do it quickly and quietly, shut everything off, and go from there. It's just too stealth for one individual to pull off, so I'm least likely to pick this theory. On an online video I saw on the MSNBC Web site, one of the commentators said that the data saying the plane went to 45,000 feet was false. If that did not happen, then you again have 200+ passengers who would not have just sat back if they sensed something was wrong, I would imagine.
4) All the data is wrong: It crashed fairly quickly for whatever reason and all the investigators and meda are incompetent.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaBurgh
Actually if they felt they screwed up and needed to end it, it makes sense that they would take the plane as far away as possible - the closer it crashes to the last point of contact, the easier to find (oil slicks, witnesses on land, etc)
Assuming something happened by accident, you'd then have to get two different people to agree to off themselves over whatever happened. I just don't see it.
The whole thing in general makes no sense. I don't see catastrophic mechanical failure knocking out every system while they're able to input a new flight path into a working computer system. No radio callback, no cellphone pings, no nothing. It has been officially confirmed that the plane's flight path was manually changed. Wouldn't they just put reverse coordinates in back to their destination of origin if something was wrong?
Putting on my speculator's cap: Theories:
(1) Sophisticated inside job: Possibly by a government entity/country. Infiltrated from the grounds crew to the pilots. Something or someone was smuggled onto the plane which would be detected at another airport, so they came up with this. Extensive research was done to pull this off. The plane's systems were hacked in advance by the ground crew so that the pilots could turn them off easily. The plan was set in motion and the coordinates set to wherever the plane might have ended up. It seems like a lot of evasive work to move a few people around, so I would go with the smuggled cargo scenario. Would you really need that big of a plane to move a few illegals around in such a public way? It is still a lot of work to go through for low-grade weapons or money. Perhaps it was something much more valuable to sinister people. Either they flew it to a discreet location that is untraceable or a hanger built into a mountaintop or something. The fact that no passenger signaled out is what is curious. Would it be possible to use a jammer to block all cell signals? I haven't been following this story too intensely, but they were in contact with the airport 15 minutes before the co-pilot said "alright, good night." How long would they be in cell range for someone to notice something was wrong and texted out that things were amiss? Seems pretty ballsy to do this if you want to be stealth and not anticipate 200+ passengers to rebel. Or, it's less complicated than that and they just flew the plane right into the airspace of whatever country set this up. That country plays dumb about ever seeing a plane on their radar.
(2) Secondary governmental theory: A country's government intentionally did this to see who would blink first in revealing what kind of radar detection they would expand in finding the thing. A set up. War games. Helping hands show their cards.
(3) I don't think it was a traditional terrorist takeover. In this day and age, the passengers would've fought back, one would suspect. If that happened, it wouldn't have taken seven hours to go down and a crash site would be easier to find and closer to where they think it would be. A government would use their own planes if they wanted to try this, although putting this under the umbrella of terrorism would give them more of a shield.
(3) Pilot suicide: Hard to imagine, but I guess if that was the intent, you could set these coordinates and go the seven hours knowing how it's going to end. I don't see two pilots agreeing to do this for no reason, so one would've locked out or killed the other. If one killed the other, he would've had to do it quickly and quietly, shut everything off, and go from there. It's just too stealth for one individual to pull off, so I'm least likely to pick this theory. On an online video I saw on the MSNBC Web site, one of the commentators said that the data saying the plane went to 45,000 feet was false. If that did not happen, then you again have 200+ passengers who would not have just sat back if they sensed something was wrong, I would imagine.
4) All the data is wrong: It crashed fairly quickly for whatever reason and all the investigators and meda are incompetent.
Assuming something happened by accident, you'd then have to get two different people to agree to off themselves over whatever happened. I just don't see it.
Its already 10:00 AM in Western Australia. Did they reach the so called wreckage or is it again some false lead?
ON CNN's live blog they said that they're supposed to have great weather today (yesterday apparently was rainy and cloudy so they couldn't see that much). Hopefully we'll get confirmation soon. Assuming they started at daylight I imagine they should be close to arriving at the site by now.
It appears passengers may have had some time - hours - to contemplate their fate and leave written or computer messages (text/video...). Maybe some have survived the crash & sea water and are waiting to be discovered.
I tend to agree, Liam, that your "oops" scenario is highly unlikely, and I'm not sure we need more hypotheticals being thrown out at this point. It may be hard to just sit tight and wait for more announcements, but that would probably be the best thing to do right now, rather than confuse the issue with more potential scenarios.
I just hope there's closure to this story, and sooner rather than later.
Well, I apologize if I have confused anyone. Next time (and hopefully there is no next time), I'll be sure to announce all of my hypotheticals earlier on like you and everyone else did.
Bear in mind...no ELT has transmitted. There are at least three of these on board the aircraft. These have deceleration triggers, as well as hydrostatic triggers, and do not rely on the ship's electrical power.
Bear in mind...no ELT has transmitted. There are at least three of these on board the aircraft. These have deceleration triggers, as well as hydrostatic triggers, and do not rely on the ship's electrical power.
Do you know the signal strength of these devices? Is it like the cockpit recorders, or for a larger range?
Quote:
Originally Posted by katzpaw
It appears passengers may have had some time - hours - to contemplate their fate and leave written or computer messages (text/video...). Maybe some have survived the crash & sea water and are waiting to be discovered.
That makes no sense given the facts. Look at the flight paths (upper right panel):
Somebody at or after 2:15am changed the course of the plane from west to dead south. That is NOT consistent with an emergency response, but it is consistent with human bad intent. That intent had to occur after the event of 1:19am that precipitated the plane's turn west.
That makes no sense given the facts. Look at the flight paths (upper right panel):
Somebody at or after 2:15am changed the course of the plane from west to dead south. That is NOT consistent with an emergency response, but it is consistent with human bad intent. That intent had to occur after the event of 1:19am that precipitated the plane's turn west.
No, it makes no apparent sense to me either based upon the timing of the last contact and the change in direction. There's some missing information somewhere along the way. Also, what happens to the eye witness accounts of a low flying plane, on fire I think, seen by the oil rig workers not too far from Viet Nam. That sighting seemed really credible unless it was something else they were seeing, not this plane. (Oh, I wasn't going to do "theories" anymore!!!!!)
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