The missing Malaysian airliner

[Damaso Marte]

I'm surprised we haven't seen a thread here yet about it - it is arguably the biggest unsolved mystery of the last week.

Here is a good comprehensive source of information about it on a discussion board for frequent travelers:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/other-asian-australian-south-pacific-airlines/1558464-mh-370-kul-pek-missing-search-operations-ongoing-please-see-wiki.html

Essentially, satellite tracking has narrowed the plane's final position to somewhere along a semi-circle that runs from Kazakhstan through China all the way to the middle of the Indian ocean off the coast of Perth, Australia.

Assuming that we can rule out the plane flying to Kazakhstan via China (surely some nation's air defenses would have spotted it), it seems to me that the plane made two 90 degree turns: one to turn west into the Andaman sea, one to turn south towards Antarctica. Pilot suicide is looking like a pretty decent bet right now.

[Abby Normal]

Yeah, I think thats very possible. Or it was high jacked and crashed in the ocean. I think if it didn't crash we would have seen that plane again already doing something like crashing into something on purpose.

[Wickerman]

Assuming that we can rule out the plane flying to Kazakhstan via China (surely some nation's air defenses would have spotted it), it seems to me that the plane made two 90 degree turns: one to turn west into the Andaman sea, one to turn south towards Antarctica.

On the contrary, this pilot had over 18,000 flying hours , the purposeful evasive action after the last official call from the plane, in turning west, turning off all communications, attempting to fly invisible, then zig-zaging a north-westerly course towards the Amdaman islands shows the pilot had a definite destination in mind.
Lets not forget that this pilot managed to evade the land-based intensive radar in the first place, so he has already demonstrated sufficient ability to evade radar, so why couldn't he go north?

You don't need to go to all that trouble to simply ditch it in the sea.

The last official position was approaching the Amdaman islands at about 2:15 am, in a N/W direction, subsequent to this the Inmarsat 3F1 satellite picked up 'pings' at 3:11, 4:11, 5:11, 6:11, 7:11 and finally at 8:11 am.
By 8:11 the plane would be low on fuel, so may have landed soon after that.

Pilot suicide is looking like a pretty decent bet right now.

I would say too much effort was put into this deception to be simply a suicide attempt.
Someone had a purpose for that plane or its contents.

[pinkmoon]

I think it's case of ??????????????????????????????????????????.not wanting to sound nasty and uncaring I would prefer the plane to be lost at sea rather than been intact and in the hands of some very misguided individuals who could use it for some appalling event.

[brummie]

It seems the more information that emerges the more of a mystery it becomes. If it was a terrorist attack taking down the plane we can safely expect that some group would have claimed responsibility by now. I also don't buy the pilot suicde theory, it would be easy enough for a pilot to just bring the plane down in the ocean if that was the only motive. A hijack remains a possibility but to what end? A hijacker seeking asylum somewhere would normally be looking for somewhere to lans and wouldn't normally bother to switch off the transponder and the ACARS automatic system, after all the 777 is not the kind of plane you can land just anywhere without drawing attention.
The fact that the aircraft communications systems were turned off, by either one of the 2 crew members or someone with access to the cockpit, before changing course suggests that a deliberate attempt was made to 'hide' the whereabouts of the aircraft, but why? Possible reasons include to gain possession of something or someone on the plane, and not seen any reports of anything of value on board. Or possibly an attempt was made to use the plane as a weapon in a 9/11 style attack and the crew realising what was happening were able to bring the plane down before it could happen.

[Wickerman]

Yet, the plane carried two beacons, one in the nose and one in the tail. Both activate on high impact and, both sense salt-water.
Neither of these beacons have been activated which suggests the plane has not crashed on land or sea.

Fascinating...

[Robert]

I remember the Payne Stewart case :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_South_Dakota_Learjet_crash

[Damaso Marte]

Re Pilot Suicide:

Keep in mind that the last two times we suspect a pilot to have committed suicide (the most famous example being the Air Egypt flight that crashed off Canada), we were able to find out that it was likely pilot suicide from the black box. The pilot may have wanted to kill himself but knew that this could be found out.

So what does he do? Crashes his plane in the remote Indian ocean, thousands of miles from the nearest land, and thousands of miles more from where the search for his plane would begin. He bets on the black box never being found. He forgets about the satellites, which is understandable as his airline didn't use that data.

[caz]

I had a fleeting dream early on the Friday morning, some thirteen hours before this plane disappeared. All I sensed was a plane going down and the number of people aboard was three figures ending in 9. I see numbers as colours, with 9 being orange, which really stuck in my mind. So strong was this feeling upon waking that I came downstairs and actually asked if there had been any bad news on breakfast tv, half dreading the answer. I don't ever recall asking such a thing before (although I did once dream about a major Chinese earthquake while it must have been happening). When I heard the shocking news the following day, and that 239 souls were missing, I was stunned.

Terribly sad for everyone with friends and relatives on board.

Love,

Caz
X

[Wickerman]

... I see numbers as colours, with 9 being orange, which really stuck in my mind....

Synesthesia.

I had it too, still have, but these past years the effect is much weaker than it was.
Back in 1987 I worked for Westinghouse in the Engineering dept. I worked on Autocad. The colours associated with layer numbers (1, 2, 3, etc.) when constructing drawings played havoc with my senses
Although I still see colours when thinking of numbers the colours are not consistent, I think it was due to me working with Autocad for many years.

I also see colours with some words, days of the week for example.


Anyhow....
The plane may have gone down in the sea, thats an obvious conclusion, but the only evidence in support of that conclusion is the 11 or so days that the world has heard nothing from anybody on that flight.

I know some think this is another pilot suicide, but none of the other presumed pilot suicide's involved evading radar and trying to fly invisible.
None of that is necessary if you are aiming for the sea bed.

[Sunbury]

Weirder every day

It is getting more bizarre every day. People in the Maldives claiming a big jet flew over them.

The Thailand Airforce finally releasing their military radar data today because "no one asked them before".

Much of the mystery may simply be incompetence in the search. The Australian Govt with US help are searching an area in the Indian Ocean 3200km South West of Perth, Australia. A very strange place to search unless they have some data they are not releasing.

Australia does have one asset that may be helping, its Jindalee Over the Horizon Radar, that has a range of over 3000kms.

But at this rate, the aircraft may be on Gilligans Island (a good internet meme) or they find Amelia Earhart during the search.

[GUT]

G'day Sunbury

But at this rate, the aircraft may be on Gilligans Island (a good internet meme) or they find Amelia Earhart during the search.

Only this morning the Child Bride said "by now the plane's probably on Gilligan's Island".

[Robert]

I suppose they could always ask for two volunteers and fly a plane in exactly the same way (real flight, not a simulation) and see what info is picked up by the various controllers. They've done this kind of thing in the past, haven't they, when they've had a tough mystery to crack?

[Wickerman]

I suppose they could always ask for two volunteers and fly a plane in exactly the same way (real flight, not a simulation) and see what info is picked up by the various controllers. They've done this kind of thing in the past, haven't they, when they've had a tough mystery to crack?

Which way do they go after the last waypoint, N/S/E/W ?

[Robert]

Do all in 4 different tests and see what happens.