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Does anybody know why they ruled out the Maldives or the Andaman Islands?
I never understood why they ruled out the Maldives. But supposedly the 7 hours of pinging post-Andamans ruled out a crash there. Supposedly the continuous pinging indicated the plane was still "operational". But couldn't it have been crashed right offshore, in shallow waters, and still been pinging for awhile? And anyway, they're now arguing over whether the pinging lasted 7 hours, or just 4 hours. There are now conflicting stories out.
I never understood why they ruled out the Maldives. But supposedly the 7 hours of pinging post-Andamans ruled out a crash there. Supposedly the continuous pinging indicated the plane was still "operational". But couldn't it have been crashed right offshore, in shallow waters, and still been pinging for awhile? And anyway, they're now arguing over whether the pinging lasted 7 hours, or just 4 hours. There are now conflicting stories out.
The pinging was engine diagnostics, only pings if engine is running.
Then the ACARS system would have already indicated this. If the plane would have landed it would have been found weeks ago
The ACARS system was disabled shortly before MH370 was due to enter Vietnamese airspace.
Secondly, alot of countries in that part of the world do not have ... governments that meet first world standards. Corruption and severe mismanagement is generally widespread within the military and law enforcement structures, the government may only have nominal control of far flung regions, etc.
People have to understand that the entire world does not function like the US, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and western European countries, etc.
I was listening to one of the DC area news stations a few weeks ago when a pilot came on to make a few comments. This pilot was amazed that up until that point in time no one considered talking to pilots about what might have happened. It was, and still is, other "experts" in the field. This pilot pointed out that all pilots are aware of every airport/runway in front of the plane, behind the plane, to the left of the plane, and to the right of plane incase of the event of a needed emergency landing. The fact that the last message sent by ACARS indicated the flight was changing towards a new direction away from Vietnamese airspace and that the flight was tracked for roughly another 7 1/2 hours is indication that the pilot[s] were not looking for an emergency airstrip.
I have read some news stories on why the passengers where not able to make phone calls. The reasons stated are that the plane was either flying at an altitude that was too high to it flying too fast. The thing is, the satellite that pinged (handshake) with Malaysian flight was an Inmarsat-3 F1 telecommunications satellite that specializes in mobile phone service and data. To top it off, if I remember correctly all 777 aircraft were initially built with in-flight phone capabilities.
This is one bizarre incident.
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Originally Posted by oceangaia
Disagree. If terrorism is to create a climate of fear and uncertainty, nothing does that as effectively as an attack by unknown entities for unknown reasons, because it gives you no clue how to defend yourself. In 9/11, bin Laden was expressly denying involvement a month afterwards, although intelligence knew he did it. Once we know who did it and why, then we can begin counterattacks and the uncertainty turns to determination and the fear turns to anger.
An airplane mysteriously disappearing is going to create more of a sense of odd curiosity than a climate of fear and uncertainty. In particular in the case of this missing Malaysian flight considering that no "attack" has been carried out.
There was a term used by the U.S. Government during WWII on the home front; Loose lips sink ships. The idea was that just because you were at home in America and "safe" you still had to watch what you said and to whom because you never knew where a pair of ears would emerge. People talk. If a terrorist organization was involved "chatter" would have been picked up either before, during, or shortly after the disappearance.
Now, it could be possible that a group small enough to honor a "no talk" policy hijacked the plane, but it is unlikely they were able to land the plane anywhere without someone knowing about it. I mean, it is a rather large plane that makes a considerable amount of noise.
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Originally Posted by Woof
The US govt almost certainly knows what happened - fer chrissake, they can tap Angela Merckel's phone and tell time from orbit by looking at someone's watch on the ground. For some reason they're staying mum. That worries me, it may be that one of the conspiracy theories is close to the truth, and they don't want to panic the public.
Considering the sheer number of orbiting satellites and observational posts on the ground and at-sea, this plane IS on someone's data stream. However, like someone's watch, those looking would have to specifically know to look for it. You need to step back and consider the sheer magnitude. Look at a globe and imagine a person standing in say Boston. Now imagine zooming in on that person's watch from 200 miles up. Pretty impressive, yes, but did you notice infinitesimally small that person would be in relation to the rest of the globe? Now imagine an airplane. If you were to use a needle to make a small indentation into the surface of that same globe you could fit hundreds, if not thousands, of passenger planes into the area created by the pin-prick and still have room left over for more.
The U.S. is staying quite because we are not that involved. It is not a U.S. based flight. The U.S. is not the only country with "top secret" surveillance capabilities, either.
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Originally Posted by bridgerider
Just a question to anyone who states the plane is in the ocean & dismisses all other statements as conspiracy nutjob theories: Why or how are you so sure? I just don't get how anyone can definitively say "it's this but not that"....when there are too many unknowns & retracted reports. Imo, there are just too many possibilities. I bet if a hypothetical conversation about a terrorist faction pulling off a four plane attack on the U.S. had taken place 20 years before 9/11, there would've been people saying that was an impossibility; only conspiracy nutjobs would think that could happen.
At this point, nobody is sure of anything other than the fact that the whole thing is at the moment a rather odd event.
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Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth
I never understood why they ruled out the Maldives. But supposedly the 7 hours of pinging post-Andamans ruled out a crash there. Supposedly the continuous pinging indicated the plane was still "operational". But couldn't it have been crashed right offshore, in shallow waters, and still been pinging for awhile? And anyway, they're now arguing over whether the pinging lasted 7 hours, or just 4 hours. There are now conflicting stories out.
I could be wrong, but if I remember correctly the pings (or "handshakes") with the Inmarsat-3 F1 satellite have the ability to approximate the general distance of the plane from the satellite. Considering that the last ACARS transmission indicated the flight was turning around, that would place the last handshake at roughly 1,000 miles off the coast of Australia; although it is possible that the plane once again changed directions, this time to the north and placing the last location of the plane somewhere near the Kyrgyzstan border with Uzbekistan. Hence the arc another mentioned by another poster. The issue with this route is that the plane would have had to have flown either over Chinese airspace or Indian airspace, and I am sure that either country would not have have known an "unknown" aircraft was entering their airspace space, but that they would not have been cool with it, either.
Hence the focus in the Indian Ocean.
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Originally Posted by WIHS2006
The ACARS system was disabled shortly before MH370 was due to enter Vietnamese airspace.
Secondly, alot of countries in that part of the world do not have ... governments that meet first world standards. Corruption and severe mismanagement is generally widespread within the military and law enforcement structures, the government may only have nominal control of far flung regions, etc.
People have to understand that the entire world does not function like the US, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and western European countries, etc.
An Inmarsat-3 F1 satellite continued to "handshake" with the plane up to roughly 7 1/2 hours after the flight took to the air. Inmarsat claims that if the plane had met a "catastrophic end", the handshakes would have immediately ceased. So according to Inmarsat the plane was not in the ocean at least up until the last handshake.
It's not like the region is some remote Amazonian jungle tribe. There are a good number of "Westerners" who live in the region plus you bet that Australia, Japan, China, and India, to name a few, have interests in what goes on around those parts. Rest assured there are plenty of "eyes on the scene".
I was listening to one of the DC area news stations a few weeks ago when a pilot came on to make a few comments. This pilot was amazed that up until that point in time no one considered talking to pilots about what might have happened. It was, and still is, other "experts" in the field.
How do you know nobody spoke with other pilots? We have no idea who the CIA and FBI spoke with, as well as who the Malaysian authorities may have spoken to.
Quote:
I have read some news stories on why the passengers where not able to make phone calls. The reasons stated are that the plane was either flying at an altitude that was too high to it flying too fast. The thing is, the satellite that pinged (handshake) with Malaysian flight was an Inmarsat-3 F1 telecommunications satellite that specializes in mobile phone service and data. To top it off, if I remember correctly all 777 aircraft were initially built with in-flight phone capabilities.
Cell phones are very low powered with a range of 10's of miles which will nor reach a satellite. Many planes have phones built into the seat-backs, but those are not cell phones, they are satellite phones. It was reported weeks ago that those phones are under the control of the cockpit and can be disabled at any time.
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