Missing Malaysia Air plane MH370 - Part 3

[KenAdams]

Thread 1

Thread 2

I can see that criminals, as clever as the ones who may have done this, could disguise an airliner in order to fly it elsewhere maliciously. But I don't really see why they would. They could load up a much smaller plane with horrible weapons, rather than go to all this trouble.

So I'm thinking it's crashed, unless there is such valuable cargo that negotiations are going on in secret. And don't know what that could possibly be - again, if you were flying something of tremendous world importance, wouldn't you do it in private aircraft?

Tunip. I was starting to think that that was a good point. But would the pilots even realise necessarily that that had happened?

Queen.

1. Terrorist dead so not a success for the terrorist?
2. Ditto
3. Ditto
4. Wasn't quite sure what point you were making.

As someone said upthread. if this is a worst case scenario and it to be used as a dirty bomb or something biological, could detonating it in the air cause worse problems by spreading it further afield? That would have to be a concern with an unknown payload

This is the trouble with the internet. Are we more informed and aware or are we inventing worries where none exist?

I havent read all of the threads on this. I am hoping that the plane is standing somewhere in the world on an airfield with everyone still alive.

However, if the hijackers where after money some sort of message would have been delivered by now wouldnt it?

I just have a feeling that it was an inside job and that sadly it has crashed somewhere in the sea and we havent found it yet.

It really is a shocking story and I also think that that there are things we havent been told that I guess will come out in the fullness of time.

Garlic. They may be wanting to make the world fearful?

Hmm. Hasn't really worked, then, tiara.

MoreBeta - on the bbc earlier they showed how to turn off the transponder (not sure how wise?!) but it was just a turn of a knob.

Has it been established that a cyber attack is possible?

There are plenty of fearful people, just on this thread.
Imagine what it is like for those living a lot nearer Malaysia. And flying in and out of the region.

I must admit I feel a lot more worried and am usually a happy flyer as I love travelling. Am going to Burma/Malaysia later in the year, part of me thinks that it will be safer than ever to fly and the other part thinks god just stay at home woman.

I don't know, whatever has happened it feels a little bit like the aftermath of 9/11 and 7/7. Not as bad obviously as in a sense 'nothing' has happened yet but the net result is that everyone is more worried, sadder and wondering what is going to happen next.

"This is the trouble with the internet. Are we more informed and aware or are we inventing worries where none exist?"

An unprecendented event has happened already with the missing plane, it's the mystery and uncertainty that is keeping the world on the edge of their seats. With 9/11, the event happened totally upfront, unexpectedly, out of the blue, and the narrative unfurled as the dust settled literally and metaphorically. With this, it's the other way around. The only thing we're certain about is the fact a plane is missing... we don't know if there's going to be a further denouement, or the plane is lying inert in a watery grave in the Indian Ocean. That is exactly part of the plan... to impart so much uncertainty amongst everyone on earth.

remind me about the black box situation -
would it ping if the plane had crashed
only has 7 days battery life
impossible to disable
no ones mentioned it/them yet have they?

Two quick things, more for/about goldie/pprune than mn, but im not setting up an account there!

(Managed to get up to date last night and then found out this afternoon i was 20 pages behind again!)

First, those here saying how does MA know that comms were switched off intentionally. It has been explained on pprune as being like a pc. You can either shut down through the menu, or press the off switch, but both will tell the hardware to initiate proper shut down procedure. Or you can pull the plug out of the wall and cut the power instantly. Thats the difference here, so it cant be any failure/accident, it was shut down intentionally.

Second is a question for goldie : a lot of people on pprune are writing off the "sighting" on the oil rig as being too far away from the last satellite ping (at closest point), at 300 odd miles away. But surely, if the plane possibly flew for another hour after the ping, it could be close enough?

tinfoil hat on now

imagine a cyber hacker able to control several planes in flight at once... move them round like chesspieces...

"I think this was a test run. Now they know what they are capable of it could happen again." except they wouldn't get away with it again because the next time a plane disappears off radar they will be on to it quicker than you can say "missing plane,"

This thread is heading into the realms of hysteria now. There has been no indication that this has anything to do with terrorism or dirty bombs, and there is no way this plane could now be used to bomb a city because the instant it enters the sky it will be discovered by the military...

But actually, it could just create this kind of hysteria - make a plane disappear, then let the world speculate, and become terrified, over what might have happened to it. sort of mock terrorism... personally the only plausible theory IMO is that it was highjacked for political purposes but that the highjacking went wrong and it ditched in the sea.

They wouldn't have twenty plus countries involved in the search if they "knew" something more than this. They wouldn't have taken a week to reach these conclusions if they knew there was terrorism involved. My bet is that the malasians are bumbling idiots in this regard and just don't really know what they're doing, and the fact the plane diverted quite so far away means that they can legitimately pass the buck to someone else who has more of a clue...

I've always said that my theories are far-fetched. All the newspapers are speculating because we are actually getting very few facts released.

Chaffinch - The second thread was a lot about the black box.

It will still beep after a crash, yes, that's what they're for.
It will beep for at least 30 days. The Air France one was still going two years later.
The signal travels for about a mile under water. The Indian Ocean's average depth is two miles.
It will only contain data from about 2 hours before the crash, so in this case there may be nothing helpful on it.

Re: the black box, underwater the battery has a life span of a minimum of 30 days... it sends out a sonar ping every few moments. However, the sound can only be picked up within a couple of miles of the site, so you have to have really good detective work (or fluke) to pinpoint where it is in the first place. With the AF crash in the Atlantic, it took them two years to find, and that was really intensive painstaking work with submarines and underwater robots.

x-post with garlic

I pray that everyone is found safe.

Also with the black box, if the hijackers have disabled the transponder/ACARS systems, it's more than likely they've also disabled the black boxes.

cheers garlic have read all threads but have baby brain couldn't remember black box latest thinking

it's a very very slim tiny fragment of possibility

Much simpler way to spread fear:

1. Put biological/chemical/nuclear weapons in several highly populated places.
2. Tell everybody what you did.

it does seem a random convoluted illogical thing to do; there are, as you say, far easier ways to terrorise.

My preferred option is a hijack (pilot or passenger) that went wrong/pilots fought back and it crashed.

Sad for the families but less scary for the rest of us.

Just could be impossible to find with no clue where to look (land or sea).

Searching an area from the Caspian Sea down to Antartica it was just reported on PM . Good grief.