Missing MH370 thread cont...

[Pennies]

Old thread here

New thread here.

The Telegraph story is sourced to someone who was imprisoned in 2005, so the Malaysians must have had their shoe bomb for a heck of a long time before using it. It might be credible in terms of intent and planning, but might not be right on pecifics.

I expect that many intelligence and security services will be working very hard on all aspects of this, and that none of their assessments will rech th public domain. Though of course leads can be passed on to the relevant police authorities or the investigation searching for the plane itself.

And here's the Telegraph article which includes quite a bit of information about the supergrass, but is also a) silent about links with Anwar Ibrahim and b) suggests neither of the pilots was in on it, if they were talking about bombing their way into the cockpit. The latter is spectacularly stupid in terms of an explosion in a pressurised cabin, which suggests they haven't planned this very well. It would tie in though as Goldie suggested with the rise and fall in altitude and 15 minute chaotic flight pattern.

Maybe the pilot regaining control and ditching it in the deepest part of the Indian ocean is the best outcome we could hope for in light of this news...

Clicky link to The Sunday Telegraph article

x-post

Right, this is freaking me out now. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10700652/Malaysia-Airline-MH370-911-style-terror-allegations-resurface-in-case-of-lost-plane.html

In KL. I really think they need to give us more info now. People will panic. Friends who live in KLCC are frightened. In fact, we all are. If they shot down the plane or know where it is, we need to know now. Panic isn't good.

Apologies for being 'tiresome'... I wasn't commenting on the ibrahim story, which imo is balls. I think the pilot is innocent, but not sure about co-pilot.

I was merely pointing out that the mirror had a new 'breaking news' story, albeit not new to me. At least they have been running a live update feed all week, even if it has been a bit sensationalist.

x post

Sorry Never I worded that badly - pretty tired now! I was referring to the Mail and Mirror coverage as tiresome, not your post, just sick and tired of reductive and sloppy journalism and think it's the last thing we need right now.

And China?

Re telegraph link, very worrying, particularly as the information pre-dates the missing plane and as the 'supergrass' states, these things are a long time in planning. It doesn't explain the variations in altitude (trying hard not to think of passengers being deplaned at 23,000 feet), but is plausible for other aspects ie disabled navigation and tracking systems.

After reading post from TypicalLibra about possibility of somewhere to land in the southern part of the new search area, I remembered an earlier theory and looked up location of Diego Garcia, now a US airbase. There will be at least one runway, and the "island" appears to be almost surrounding a shallow lagoon, which I guess might be a possible landing area.
The article had notes on the history of the place, along with the fact that D.Cameron is due to have talks about renewing the lease to the Americans this week, so I'm guessing the plane is on this island or nearby.
Is this reasonable, I wonder?

De-lurking to ask the same question as panda.

What are the physical affects of the plane's changes in altitude? Assuming the pilot was not responsible for whatever was happening on board, would the crew have been able to function properly with these sudden changes in altitude?

The poor families of those on board, the not knowing must be terrible. I agree with several posts that the investigating agencies know more than they're letting on. I hope it's resolved very, very soon.

Interesting article - downloads as a word doc which explains the impact on humans at high altitude on planes.

If you google 43000 feet, apart from the MH370 links, you get an advert for Emirates stating that passengers can shower (i.e. height of luxury) at this altitude, so assuming the plane didn't depressurise, it shouldn't be a massive impact - but looking to Goldie for a more informed view on this.

And this article is Wikipedia's take on decompression which interestingly states that a bullet hole wouldn't be enough to cause catastrophic and immediate depressurisation leading to hypoxia. I'm guessing it would be different if someone detonated a shoebomb to blow off the cockpit door though.

I am finding this just all impossible to comprehend to be honest and can't switch off from thinking about it. I fly a lot (used to fly weekly for work, now 8 - 12 times a year for other purposes) and it's really freaking me out.

Yea, it's freaking me out too....

I fly a lot too and flew Malaysian in and out of KL last year.

Those poor families. I can't imagine what they must be going through....

I just hope it gets resolved really soon!!!

EmNetta Diego Garcia has been mentioned I guess as a possible terrorist target, also as one of the bases where the US monitors the region, but why would the Americans allow an unknown hijacked flight to land there - and what would they want with a random passenger jet? It seems more likely from the flight that it would be a hijack directed at Chinese interests than US ones...but who knows.
I can't imagine the UK govt would refuse to extend the lease of a US military base that's been there for half a century...

Just picked this up off pprune: "
By the way, the 45,000ft data and then the 0 altitude data seem to support a disintegration of flight MH370. MH370 with its load could not climb to 45000, but a MH370 with missing parts may, in part of the breakdown series."

Goldie do you know what 0 altitude data he's referring to? Because if that bit of information is accurate, then his logical conclusion looks right.

Going back to the brief string of conversation earlier, Malaysian accepts unaccompanied minors between 5 and 18. Info here

My last post on this before hopefully going to bed and tomorrow thinking about something else. Link to Australian news media about potential Uighur passenger

Looks like options are:

1. Catastrophic technical failure of the aircraft, potentially caused by shoe bomb (i.e. from the Telegraph story) or other mechanical fault and total disintegration of the plane - unlikely if the Inmarsat data is correct
2. Uighur separatists took over the plane and either 2a) landed it for nefarious purposes at a later date or 2b) crashed it
3. Pilot suicide potentially masked as accident by rerouting and running out of fuel, possibly in the deepest part of the Indian ocean
4. Pilot purposefully rerouting plane potentially for terrorist reasons relating to Malaysian politics with some problem further down the line which prevented any plan of potentially flying into the Petronas Towers
5. An extraordinary gold heist with added potential for 'deplaning' passengers at 20,000 feet
6. Any one of a number of governments shooting (the already rerouted) plane out of the sky when crossing their airspace, and now trying to cover it up - good luck with that as there will be many involved and impossible to hush up in the longer term
7. US government-linked conspiracy with the plane landing in Diego Garcia with their knowledge (seems exceptionally unlikely to me, but there we are)
8. Something totally woo
9. Something we haven't thought of.

In any circumstance, it really doesn't look remotely hopeful for the 239 souls on board. FWIW, My money's on 2b or 9. Taking off my tinfoil hat now and heading for bed.

Night all, and as Nick Ross would say, don't have nightmares.

weasle, Monet and others who were wondering about 'offloading' passengers, I mentioned upthread that it would be impossible to open the plane doors at that altitude (even the emergency exits) without depressurising the cabin first, so it's unlikely that any potential terrorists would have bothered, given that they'd then have to wear oxygen masks for the rest of the flight. If they were hijackers then presumably they were armed, so if they wanted to kill the passengers there would have been easier ways to go about it.

Isn't 45,000ft fairly standard for a jetliner? On the high side of standard admittedly, but I'm pretty sure some do go up to that altitude (not sure about a 777 specifically). Given that the cabin's pressurised anyway I wouldn't have thought the passengers would be too badly affected, provided the plane itself wasn't damaged. I'm not sure about that though, someone correct me if I'm wrong!

The papers said it's above the approved max height for a 777, but shouldn't cause any problems. I think it caused interest because the pilot wouldn't have exceeded the plane's rating unless something was going on.

Latest news is aimed at the political interests of the pilot.

Clearly the authorities know far more than they are letting on. It is possible there is a larger more worrying situation going on while the plane is sti missing of a bigger act of terrorism.

I think they have known it's been a hijacked from the start but didn't want the terrorists to know they were on to them. Everyone has been desperately buying time to locate the plane.

Please leave the pilots out of it for the time being - its correct and proper that they should first be investigated (and seen to be before their characters are thrown to the baying mob in appeasement) despite the fact they might be/are probably dead, dying as they fought humans/the elements/faulty equipment/etc? trying to save all souls on board as 99.999% of pilots would do.