Missing MH370 thread cont...

[Pennies]

Old thread here

New thread here.

Quick Google has thrown up nothing reliable about a Greek boat finding luggage.

The guardian are now mentioning terrain masking.
Again it comes down to, where do you land, how do you hide and how do you refuel and get it back in the air with the world looking for it.
And what do you do with the passengers?

Are 777 only used to transport passengers? Are they used for cargo/military uses? Could you change its call sign and tail/body logos and land it somewhere in plain (plane) sight?

Agree public, the DM in particular is trying to make a story out of nothing. Very bad particularly given the complete lack of evidence presented to date.

yep. i was thinking how easy it would be to paint me as a political extremist if they wanted to - take a few selected posts from here and my facebook and i could be 'obsessed' with political injustice and economic inequality. it would be no less tenuous than what some rags have done in their portrayal of this pilot.

the 5000ft thing is interesting. i know it's not very rational and most have discounted it but i still have this nagging thing about dropping cargo or valued people and exiting the plane at agreed coordinates by blasting through the fuselage with a shoe bomb for example. do we know 'where' the plane was when it went to 40k feet and then down again or where it was that they think it dropped to 5k?

if the goal was a 9/11 style event i'd think the petronus towers a likely target and it would explain turning back but i don't see what could have gone so wrong that they'd end up flying south until running out of fuel and crashing into the sea. it would seem more likely in that scenario that someone shot them down but lots of reasons have been given as to how that is unlikely considering the resources being used searching and the levels of cooperation between various nations there'd have to be to cover it up.

landing anywhere seems unlikely and if you were heading to central asia i don't know why you'd turn back over malasian airspace.

if this is the intended outcome (for the plane to just disappear) then yes it would seem likely that's only effective in a wider plan of more events to follow (not using this plane) with say another flight disappearing or something as an ongoing demonstration of ability?

sorry - long thinking out loud.

that southern corridor is a good location (quiet shipping lane, no radar) for the agreed coordinates idea and once exited the plane would go on to crash into the sea and be hard to find.

honey that's going to need a Goldie answer :)

Just read the thing about the 5,000 feet and terrain mapping. Tried to find it on the Straits Times site but phone won't work.

goldie answered quite a few of my q's about this earlier.

key points iirc:
-you can't open the doors of cargo hold or cabin in flight
-there is access to the cargo hold from the cabin on that plane (relatively unusual to have access to front and aft holds in flight)
-you'd have to blow through the fuselage and fuck pressurisation to get out of the plane
-hole might be too small as it's not like you see in the movies where the whole thing tears open

we were however looking at it from the 20,000ft altitude point then though so i don't know if things change in light of this 5000ft perspective.

Those were my thoughts Honey. That as there seems no reason, it may be that we just don't know the reason yet. It could be that the point isn't what happened to the plane, but that it has happened at all and could happen again.

Watching Fox News at 4am this morning they seemed to be saying the flight plan was programmed in before it left the ground. I don't know how they know that but going with it for the time being, it surely points to the pilot/s being in on it. I really want to believe that the pilot wasn't responsible because you put your trust in them don't you?

Also, the terrain hugging. What is the significance of flying at 5,000ft? Apart from to avoid radar I mean. Would the cabin be depressurised at that altitude? Is it possible that people could offload from the plane?

Lastly, the news also said they now strongly believe the northern path was taken. Curiouser and curiouser.

The aircraft is pressurised to an equivalent of 8000 feet so at 5000 feet you can get out of a plane ok - typical parachute jumps are between 3000 and 13,000 feet.

I assume there is something other than pressure eg a lock that stops the doors being opened in flight but I guess that can be overridden.

I know Goldie explained the pressurisation thing and that I was impossible at 20,000ft. It seemed a silly idea at that point. But I think she mentioned the level that the plane could be depressurised (9000ft? Not sure?) and said it unlikely that the plane would fly at that altitude.

It seems the most likely things keep getting ruled out and the most unlikely scenarios gain more and more credence.

I meant to write "might be overridden" not "can be"

X-posts. Thank you Garth

I wonder how many more days this search goes on for before it slows down and they eventually stop looking? Will they stop searching?

Have been reading this all there threads with fascination. On finding absolutely no update by the World news, I am now beginning to think this 'mystery' will never be solved. it must be awful for everyone who is involved.

What I mean is that if they really don't know much more then we are led to believe, I think the search operation will gradually be curbed back and the 'story' will soon slip out of the media. I hope I'm wrong. It's just that I thought the events yesterday sounded somehow promising but no further updates today.

Is it still a SAR operation or is it now a criminal investigation? I don't believe they will continue this level of searching indefinitely. The investigation itself must continue though. Although they still can't locate the plane it seems like more and more information is coming out, albeit slowly. It's certainly a totally different investigation to what it was a week ago.

i suppose the real investigation now is at the intelligence gathering and searching level rather than what we're seeing in terms of the search for a plane.

I think its now a criminal investigation.

I was also wondering how long all these countries would put their resources into finding it, and when the search will be scaled back. I really hope they find something soon and this doesn't turn into an unsolved mystery

The "parachute" scenarios fails because, aside from everythingelse, if they had been carrying a large number of parachutes, it would have been noticed.

doesn't need to be a large number does it?

Said on Fox News that it is now a criminal investigation given the pre-programming of the flight turnaround.

Perhaps not, but that then comes back to the underlying problem that if you don't know what type of event was planned you don't know what sort of clues to look for.

And as the clues to a terrorist/advanced hijack would be the job of intelligence and security agencies, that's the part of the investigation that the public will not be made aware of.

Sky news are reporting that they are looking into one of the passengers

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26543755
Life news briefing at 9

Even if authorities were to eventually stop looking, there are bound to be some amateurs around the world who wont for the rest of their lives.

Perhaps someone can answer. The supposed flight levels of 43,000 feet, 29,000 feet and now maybe 5,000 feet. Are they flight levels that are good for evading commercial and military radar? Ideal even?