Missing MH370 thread cont...

[Pennies]

Old thread here

New thread here.

Also I guess you could safely crash land the thing if you were stealing something? You don't need the plane, you need the contents.

In a way I hope either it's the above and the passengers are still alive or it was a crash and it was a merciful quick end. To be taken for an act of terrorism is just too awful to contemplate what they would be going through otherwise.

Rusty I think you may be right with the theory that the terrorists are testing their capabilities.

Just following this thread from the other one, many thanks morebeta and Goldie (v interesting re: gold ~ orchids)

I am also grateful for all the knowledge here Thanks {smile]

May I ask a really daft sounding question with this new news ref the type of satlite am I right in thinking the sattalite picked up a bleep signal on a longutudie line but not a lantduite line so hence they are now looking north and south of the bleep I was trying to listen to the news but dp walked in and I think I missed the bit of explaining and I am really not techy minded

"Gold in the hold weighing 10 tonnes would be approximately the same weight as 50 passengers plus their baggage. "

"The principle is right but the number is a bit off. Global standard assumption is that 1 passenger and their baggage weighs 200lbs (ICAO assumption used by airlines) - so a squidge over 90kg ('squidge' being a technical term grin ) so 10t of gold is about 111 passengers plus bags."

Bit of a tangent:
Do they really assume a passenger and there bags only weigh 90kg? That seems really low. If you take a standard checked bag of 23kg, not including any handluggage or the clothes they are wearing that only leaves 67kg of person. That's less than the average weight we were always taught to use for a non overweight person (in medical school when calculating liters of blood or medication dose for example).
I'm surprised.

Just marking spot

Further to something upthread.....There was only one adult American on board...there was a group of Chinese specialists who worked for American firm but only one adult male American apparently.

Just seen Sky news, all these relatives sitting in a hotel lobby with nothing to do but wait. Ghastly.

What does marking the spot mean?

Usually the press release pictures of the passengers on board but theyve not done that this time.....does anyone know why?

No, no expertise in hijacking!

But if you look at it in terms of event planning, what is needed to run the event, (and 'staff' with the right expertise an access, and in this case mitivation) then it's pretty obvious (well, to me) that this would take considerable time in the planning stages. So yes, I think valuable cargo would also be opportunistic not the original target.

Assuming it is criminal/terrorist/piracy type aim, not suicide by pilot (for which the plans/logistics would be far simpler, but the actual diverted light path before disapperance just as inexplicable).

Totally marking spot is way of finding the thread again instead of bookmarking

Marking the spot just means that you have saved it. Makes it easier to find when you want to catch up with the thread.

Cross-post.

Another marking place

its very strange. How could a plane crash or land without someone seeing something such as a plane on the ground, a fire, debris etc?

Also how could someone not be able to send a message from the plane? Don't the stewards have emergency phones on board or something?

It makes no sense at all to me

gut feeling, and i'm totally ill informed, is that this is some kind of demonstration of capabilities.

on the cargo question - is it possible to enter the cargo hold in the air? if so is it not possible to drop cargo with parachutes, inflatable devices etc at agreed coordinates in the sea/over land? then ditching the plane doesn't require a decent airfield? or am i way too james bond on this?

if they were after personnel from the military engineering company i would have thought there would be easier ways to target them than hijacking a commercial airliner and drawing the attention of the whole world?

just was thinking the drop gold off the plane at agreed point where it is to be collected by a boat or truck got rid of the need to land without damaging the cargo hold or plane. clearly no clue of airplane logistics though so please be gentle if i have said something idiotic.

also i really don't believe the plane would be what they were after. are planes really that hard to get that you'd orchestrate a hijacking of a passenger filled flight?

the only blackmail position i can see over such powerful nations is if the cargo contained something extremely sensitive that no one would ever want proof had ever existed let alone was being moved about on passenger flights.

I wondered why there wasn't any emergency phone call too, either from the cabin crew or a passenger - although if guns and bombs were threatened you would probably not be reaching for your phone. Those poor relatives - can't imagine what nightmare they are living through.

Just shocking. I'm at work now but will catch up later.

Marking place too, from the old thread

No mobile phone signal in the sky.

Does anyone know why planes have transponders that can be switched off? Why are they not set to stay on all the time? In what circumstances does a commercial plane need to turn them off anyway?