Missing MH370 thread cont...

[Pennies]

Old thread here

New thread here.

Good point meditrina.

The only thing I know for sure about this whole situation is that it has given me a serious case of the heebie jeebies for over a week now.

Yes medi thinking the same here - easy really for ground crew to stow away.

"GruntfuttockSat 15-Mar-14 12:20:02

EmmaSue" Everybody has a mobile these days, if someone claims they don't, they can be searched, or just killed on the spot."

Everybody does not have a mobile these days. I've never had one."

I suspect that is the point emma is making. Vast majority will hand them over. Anyone who refuses for whatever reason will be killed

Livingzuid do you have a link to the Chinese statement? I can't find it getting a bit obsessed with this

I can't see the American or Chinese governments allowing themselves to be blackmailed for the sake of a plane full of people tbh. I know that sounds terrible, but hopefully you know what I mean. I think terrorists would need significantly more leverage than that to blackmail China or America.

www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/15/mh370-search-for-missing-malaysia-airlines-plane-extended-to-southern-indian-ocean

Thanks!

Yes I had thought about the link to the train station attack. There was also something during the week about someone predicting an air related attack on China. I've read so much in the past week (had very strong gut instinct that it was terrorism) that I have no idea where I read that. The whole media leaks and statements etc has been a circus.

Maybe China are pissed with the US because they have been shown up as being less in the know? Must read statement.

It would depend what they want to use the plane for and / or what was on the plane though. The US and, to be fair nowhere else unless they are a crazed rogue nation, wants a repeat of 9/11.

Here's the statement from the Chinese version of the Beeb in full

not sure if this has been said but wouldn't the plane need refueling if they were to try to use it as some kind of weapon?

Its seems impossible to believe that out of two hundred plus passengers someone anyone didn't text for help, if it was a hostage situation. It wouldn't have connected and sent straight away but surely would have when the plane 'landed'. Even if 'they' demanded passenger phones, some of those travelling will have two or more. Surely hand over one and keep the other... Unless 'they' jammed the signals.
Or more likely there was an event that incapacitated everyone on board at the same time. Thus there has been no contact.

There is no way they're going to be able to fly the plane into a populated city. If they wanted to do that they would have carried on towards Beijing and done it there and then.

What would be valuable enough for the Chinese to allow themselves to be blackmailed? And would that be transported on a passenger plane?

But China is starting to look pretty weird. Say the equivalent would be a plane full of Americans taking off from Estonia bound for LAX, and the US appears not to know what's going on whilst letting Russia ride in to direct the search and locate the plane.... Massive loss of geopolitical face.

Remember that it was a Beijing-bound flight, so any likely terrorist activity might be assumed to have some kind of relationship to its destination... Whatever China knows, right at the moment their response looks more like damage limitation and panic.

I think it was already shown in the last thread and upthread here why the mobile phone thing wasn't a goer? Too high and no reception over water.

Agree about the smoke & mirrors! Also, I'm letting the Malaysian government off the hook (I'm sure they'll be relieved ) as I thought they were being hopelessly inept, whereas in fact they were hostage to technical procedures - and the two most powerful governments, who must be controlling the flow of information in probably different ways.

The unconfirmed rumour about Ukraine's remaining gold reserve says it was being flown to America, but there seems to be no hard information about whether it was really removed or where it went, if so.

There's also the question of where Viktor Yanukovych had hidden the gold reserves he embezzled from Ukraine, thought to be worth about $20bn. I'm not saying MH370 has anything to do with Ukraine or its money, btw, but trying to fill in two of the reasons why gold has been mentioned as possible motives for a hijack.

In 9/11 the passengers knew they were going to die and used their mobiles to phone their loved ones. We don't know what happened here. If the passengers were told by the hijackers that their lives would be spared if they did as they were told they would dutifully hand over their mobiles. I know I would.

Maybe hijackers wanted to fly to Beijing, but the pilot managed to divert off into the sea? Similar to one of the 9/11 planes.

The plane has flown over the Malay peninsula now so there would be signal there. Although if the plane was too high, this would be irrelevant.

Its seems impossible to believe that out of two hundred plus passengers someone anyone didn't text for help, if it was a hostage situation. It wouldn't have connected and sent straight away but surely would have when the plane 'landed'.

It seems perfectly believable to me, what with there not being mobile coverage on 100% of the world.

However, I think there are more likely scenarios than a hostage one.

I think it was shot down.
Someone realised it was highjacked and flying off course, and hypothetically, with countries jittery from the latest terrorist attacks it got shot down.
Would that show on any radars?

If the passengers were not aware of any problems why would they be trying to contact relatives etc? Assuming they were settled in for a flight of several hours' duration, it's entirely possible that they were well across the Indian ocean before they realised anything was amiss.

In the UK you have to have a reason to search someone's house so that there is an audit trail of evidence for any trial. If the evidence takes a lot of analysis before it is sound enough then that's the time required.

This is not the UK, however. I'm fairly convinced that there are many other countries who would not follow such protocol.

following cos this is giving me the heebie jeebues