Missing MH370 thread cont...

[Pennies]

Old thread here

New thread here.

Not at 9, sorry, I can't work out what time it's scheduled for.

I'm just trying to make sense of these wildly varying altitude figures.

First they say the plane initially climbed to 40,000ft, or even 45,000ft. This is highly dangerous and it's extremely unlikely to be possible to get to 45000ft. But say it's possible to get up there and it causes hypoxia to all on board, save whoever is piloting who has a separate oxygen supply. The passengers would be dead within a short space of time.

Then the plane descends, erratically, to 5000ft, to fly low across the Malay peninsula. Eyewitness sightings of a low flying plane in the area of Kelantan seem to be gaining credence. Could whoever was piloting bail out at that altitude? How?

The plane then flies on on its preprogrammed route. No one left alive on board. So it doesn't matter when or where the plane comes down ( to the perpetrators.)

I'm quite aware that this will be considered a ridiculous theory. I'm just asking a lot of "what ifs", but it seems to be a completely audacious plan, that was doomed to failure but somehow, whoever has planed this has pulled it off. I suggest that some things that seemed highly unlikely or impossible a week ago have come to be and the easiest to believe, most palatable answers are slowly being ruled out.

Going back to earlier points about not having much to say, I've abandoned the Guardian now because it's just published a series of emails from a solicitor in Sydney asking about why they aren't using mobile phones.....

Did not link for fear of risking goldie's wrath

How does a solicitor know about mobile phone technology anyway! Clutching at straws to publish something, anything?

livingzuid: I think the "clutching at straws prize for the most desperate attempt to publish a story in the absence of any actual information" probably goes to the Mail on Sunday for its piece stating that the plane's disappearance bore a remarkable resemblance to a Tintin story.

Yeah, I thought that Mail Tintin thing was really inappropriate.

Live news conference on bbc news in ten mins

Tintin

Are there no limits to the stupidity in the Mail?

most stupid question ever

Oh good old DM, can always be relied on to say the complete wrong thing. Very true, that article was

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26543755

on now

Did anyone else think this was interesting?

"The pilots flight simulator has been reassembled in a police station. We are co operating with the FBI and Interpol".

Doesn't look like Goldie will be back in time to start a new thread before this one gets full up so I've started a new thread.

One theory is that pilots had a serious argument - one had very different political beliefs or something like that? The pilot had attended a controversial court case that very day..

intriguing, and now no translation

Could it have crashed into the jungles of Sumatra? It looks as though it were headed across Malaysia and then maybe skimming the top of the island?

I remember flying in a light aircraft over the Amazon in Peru and there was nothing but jungle in every direction. It was a sobering thought that if we went down we would in all likelihood never be found.

I am also horribly fascinated by this awful story. News on all the time, those poor poor families. We will all just move on to the next big story in a few days time but they will be in limbo for god knows how long .

"The pilots flight simulator has been reassembled in a police station. We are co operating with the FBI and Interpol".

I just took that to mean it is being fully and competently examined.

I so want the pilot to not be vilified unless evidence shows to the contrary that he is implicated. He may have averted an even greater tragedy by flying the aircraft into the sea rather than an urban area if he was under duress.

If, and a big if, he was on a suicidal course surely the co-pilot would be able to intervene to stop him or at least send a mayday?

Would one or other of the pilots have left the cockpit at any stage for a 'comfort' break ? Is that when things could have happened ?

That's true I guess and then been locked out? He would know how to get back in though surely? I wonder if they can change the code to the door from the inside?

Goldie we need you back from work!

I suppose it's possible that one or other left the flight deck for a ordinary brief reason and was then locked out. That would have had to happen just before the ACARS was switched off and whilst radio contact with the ground was still continuing.

Is it possible to speak to the ground from anywhere on the plane other than the flight deck?

Couldn't the erratic flying be due to a struggle in the cockpit?

goldie already discussed why the locked out theory wasn't possible. Although not able to say much as I think it was a security issue.

Or at least I think it wasn't possible. Non-issue, she said.

meditrina Goldie stated earlier that a pilot couldn't be locked out of the cockpit - wouldn't say how but just that it wasn't possible. I guess he could have fallen ill or injured though.