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You raise some interesting points. Seems like security is either INCREDIBLY lax in this part of the world still, or something else is amiss. Too much of a coincidence for there to be a number of people trying to escape some place to get to another, under false creds, for a mechanical failure to be the ultimate end of this flight.
But I'm still stuck on the theory that the plane enountered some trouble, the pilots fought to land it smoothly on water, and unfortunately it took on water too fast to be retrieved, and it sank into the abyss.
If only I knew WHERE, I'd be the guy with the sad, unfortunate answers.
That part of the world is not homogenius at all. Singapore is highly regimented and as safe as any airport I have flown through or from in this country or anyother.
There are very few people that if something terrible happens to them doesn't also have some events in the life that wouldn't be used to imagine the worst about them and be used to say "look they lost their dog last week, that is why they crashed their car".
When it comes to suicide, notice that people who commit mass murders and then suicide do so to either make statements or gain notoriety?
If or when the find the plane, absence of a gunshot or strangulation or some other situation pointing to disabling the other pilot how would anyone know the pilot committed suicide? Then it doesn't make sense that the pilot would choose to also kill 200+ other people.
If no one else knows one committed suicide, what does killing other people at the same time accomplish? It isn't like someone is going to find a suicide note although he could have had one engraved in metal and put into a secured container but really...
Here's my question. There are now so many fantastic theories as to where this plane may have ended up. It seems like the mainstream media has taken notice of these (meteors, UFO's, terrorism, suicide, shadowing behind another plane, etc..) even if some of them sound outlandish and many have remarked about how outlandish they sound. Yet, I still have not heard much of a peep when it comes to the outlandish theories about Diego Garcia or even places like Cocos (Keeling) Islands even though I thought our military has access to radar in that area. Is that because we are now assuming that the plane would never have entered the areas to the west of the drawn "arcs"? It seems like all of the evidence out there is not completely solid (especially since it keeps changing day-by-day, hour-by-hour), so why are we to assume that based upon the pings, there is absolutely no way the plane could have traveled beyond those arcs?
My question may not make any sense, but these type of scenarios (missing planes) has my mind baffled.
Here's my question. There are now so many fantastic theories as to where this plane may have ended up. It seems like the mainstream media has taken notice of these (meteors, UFO's, terrorism, suicide, shadowing behind another plane, etc..) even if some of them sound outlandish and many have remarked about how outlandish they sound. Yet, I still have not heard much of a peep when it comes to the outlandish theories about Diego Garcia or even places like Cocos (Keeling) Islands even though I thought our military has access to radar in that area. Is that because we are now assuming that the plane would never have entered the areas to the west of the drawn "arcs"? It seems like all of the evidence out there is not completely solid (especially since it keeps changing day-by-day, hour-by-hour), so why are we to assume that based upon the pings, there is absolutely no way the plane could have traveled beyond those arcs?
My question may not make any sense, but these type of scenarios (missing planes) has my mind baffled.
From what I understand, the arcs they show on the news were created by the final ping at 8:11am. By that time the plane would nearly have been out of fuel (they don't believe extra fuel was added to the plane). So it couldn't have traveled much beyond a point on those arcs. (Although 'much' could still mean many miles, but likely not thousands). Although I think I read somewhere that the 777 is designed to be able to glide for 100 miles if both engines were lost (anyone know if this is true?).
I would be nice if at least they could get Diego Garcia to confirm if they caught anything on radar. Or the Cocos (Australia owns them, I think?)
The arcs are based on the fuel of the aircraft, which is a finite resource...
Is it possible for a plane to have flown outside of that arc?
- Yes, but that would require landing at a point inside the arc for additional fuel
or
- Having additional fuel loaded on to the plane prior to the departure
When initially setting up the search, the first major question to be asked should be "how much fuel was on board the airplane". I'd cross reference that with the dispatch provided release (how much fuel was planned) then corroborate that with how much fuel was actually loaded onto the plane in comparison to the previous fuel burn from the inbound flight. Based on that data (and your trust of the personnel at the departure airport) you should have an accurate starting fuel ... which provides you a range (w/o refueling). Re-routing (i.e. flying 300 miles over the bay before turning to the South West) will as a result shorten that range.
By now they know exactly how much fuel was on that plane so it's duration is also known.
The big problem with it crashing or a water landing in the ocean is that if it is only a short distance away from someone looking for it, they'd not know it was there. Many parts of the ocean are not flat. Then, depending on the depth of the water, where it hits the water could be a very long way from where it comes to rest on the ocean floor. If it flew until nearly empty of fuel, there isn't that much oil remaining to create huge oil slicks. If it made a water landing and sank relatively intact, there might not even be a slick.
With much of the buoyant materials contained, there would be little evidence that somewhere below was a large airliner.
Malaysian officials said early in the search that they suspected the plane backtracked and flew toward the Strait of Malacca, just west of Malaysia. But it took a week for them to confirm Malaysian military radar data that suggested that route. On Tuesday, Thai military officials said their own radar showed an unidentified plane, possibly Flight MH370, flying toward the strait beginning minutes after the Malaysian jet's transponder signal was lost. ......
Montol said that at 1:28 a.m., Thai military radar "was able to detect a signal, which was not a normal signal, of a plane flying in the direction opposite from the MH370 plane," back toward Kuala Lumpur. The plane later turned right, toward Butterworth, a Malaysian city along the Malacca strait. The radar signal was infrequent and did not include any data such as the flight number.
When asked why it took so long to release the information, Montol said, "Because we did not pay any attention to it. The Royal Thai Air Force only looks after any threats against our country." He said the plane never entered Thai airspace and that Malaysia's initial request for information in the early days of the search was not specific.
Edit: The Butterworth article is available now on Google News and sadly, it does make perfect sense. Now the only question is to get those in authority to plot the course, check the fuel capability and look for the plane along that line. What are the odds that will happen?
OK, rather than proposing what happened to the plane, let's go through the scenarios and determine the pros/cons of each scenario:
Fire or explosion (the Chris Goodfellow theory)
According to this theory there was an explosion or fire at about 1:09am, just after the "Goodnight" message from the co-pilot. Chaos ensued and systems failed.
Two problems with this theory: (1) there were maneuvers executed over the Malaysian peninsula and again west of there that look like an attempt to evade radar,but certainly looked like the pilot was flying the aircraft. (2) I have a friend who was an engineer at Boeing and he worked on 777 avionics. There is triple redundancy for all systems and he thinks the chances of knocking out the transponder by fire or explosion is almost zero. Furthermore, the 777 has an emergency device that drops out of fuselage, uses air flow to turn a generator, and it is designed to power emergency systems in the case of a fire. It would have deployed.
The plane landed somewhere in the Indian Ocean
Perhaps. Two scenarios to look at:
(1) Assume the purpose is to re-fuel and fly onward. In this case either (a) someone set up a lot of infrastructure on an abandon island to re-fuel the plane, or (b) the plane landed at a maintained airport. (b) is highly unlikely as we would all have heard about it. (a) is possible but seems far-fetched that al Qaeda could transport jet fuel, fuel tanks, and fueling gear to an abandon island somehow.
(2) Assume the purpose is to not re-fuel. This is the final destination. Question is - why? If this were a kidnapping, someone would make a ransom demand. If this were a terrorist act, why would they be silent about carrying this off? This scenario does not make any sense.
The plane landed somewhere in Asia
The single biggest problem with this theory is a lot of radar would have to evaded. It does seem possible to do that but it would be difficult. The perpetrators would really be guessing that they could get away with not being detected flying over lots of countries. And you would have to ask - why? If this were a kidnapping it makes no sense to remain quiet. The only way this makes sense is if someone is stealing the plane and does not care about the passengers. One country to look at is Myanmar. It borders the Bay of Bengal and is probably the least technologically sophisticated as any country along the so-called Northern Corridor. But it is also packed with people so someone would likely see a jet landing there.
Suicide
This would be a very elaborate suicide, no doubt about it. And there is nothing reported that would indicate suicidal tendencies in either pilot. It could also be suicide by a passenger who got access to the cockpit. In any event, this scenario has the least technical problems. Its biggest problem is that it is hard for us to imagine someone doing this in this way that also kills 238 other people.
Political protest by the pilot
It has been reported that the pilot was upset about the trial and jailing of Anwar Ibrahim in Malaysia and perhaps he is making a political statement. If the end result of this "statement" is crashing the plane, this is essentially the suicide scenario, but with a motive. If his intended end result was to land the plane, that would provide an explanation for why land on an abandon island without being able to take-off again.
Summary
Of all these outcomes, I put the greatest likelihood on the Political Protest scenario and least likelihood on landing in the Indian Ocean as part of a terrorist act. Somewhere between those two is the fire/explosion theory and landing in Asia.
Malaysia recently said this is now a criminal matter, meaning they are rejecting the fire/explosion theory. Apparently this is what American officials are also saying, off the record.
CNN reports someone (with sophisticated technical knowledge) may have pre-programmed the computer that is sitting between the two pilots with 7 or 8 keystrokes which caused the sharp turn of direction when it lost communication. If it's not one of the pilots, who else could have entered the cockpit before the flight? Maintenance worker? Other crew members? Could any passenger enter it?
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