Missing Malaysia Airlines MH370... Thread 4

[GoldieMumbles]

Thread 1

Thread 2

Thread3

And good morning :)

I can't find much in the news this morning about the two transmitters going off at the same time. Must search on laptop.

This is the latest from the BBC as China are sending ships to search around Indonesia. Also a head in hands moment at the comment from the Thai military when asked why they didn't spot the plane earlier - 'because they didn't pay attention to it'. A ruddy great big 777 flies through your airspace on the wrong flightpath not responding to communications and you don't pay attention to it?! The mind boggles.

There will be some serious questions needing answers about how planes fly through airspace and how that was allowed to happen.

m.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26624546

If it were a very smoky electrical fire with not much flame I think the pilots could sadly have died of smoke inhalation in that small cabin. The fire wouldn't have been enough to take down the plane which could have flown on until it ran out of fuel.

Still doesn't explain why the plane was diverted via a code instead of mechanically but the mechanical equipment could have malfunctioned so that the code was the only way to turn the plane. Perhaps the erratic flying was the pilots struggling with the malfunctioning mechanical controls, unable to communicate with the ground, being overcome by the smoke.

The passengers and remaining crew would have been helpless to communicate their predicament or to steer the plane. Even if they could have accessed the cockpit everything had apparently malfunctioned. I think this is the most likely explanation but a horrifying final few hours for the passengers.

Goldie on smoke:
"What about this theory ?"

I did kind of allude to that on the lastthread somewhere but there are a couple of things that don't stack up.

If it was just smoke, the cockpit crew have smoke hoods in the emergency kit in the cockpit, so could still fly the aeroplane.

"A ruddy great big 777 flies through your airspace on the wrong flightpath not responding to communications and you don't pay attention to it?! "

Why would the Thai military have known it wasn't responding to civilian air communications?

Well if it was flying through your airspace unauthorised they would ask wouldn't they?

The original Wired article addressed the smoke hood issue. The hoods help but aren't perfect for keeping smoke out. They buy a little time but that's all, as you can't use oxygen if there's a fire.

At the press conferences, the minister confirmed RR have been involved in the investigation since the first Sunday, and also said 4 or 5 days ago that there was no data to indicate that the plane had continued in the air for hours after the last known contact.

That was before news broke of the distant satellite ping, raising prospect that the plane had continued.

So, either RR are involved in the theorists' conspiracy and are deliberately withholding or fabricating data, or the plane carried on flying without transmitting anything after the 1:07 last known contact.

(Or there is some other cock up on how the public has been briefed on this. I liked how an earlier poster put it, if it could be either cock up or conspiracy, it'll be cock up).

I do think the Maldives sightings need to be looked into properly! Am I right in understanding that the search that is taking place is nowhere near the Maldives?

This from Reuters for me highlights how difficult the search is as countrues don't want to to share radar data. Highlights their weaknesses.

'Asked how important military tracking data would be to resolving the mystery, Hishammuddin said, "It is very important. But in the case of Malaysia, we have actually put aside national security, national interest to get to where we are today."

A senior diplomat in the region said military and government leaders were studying Malaysia's request, but there was no word so far on whether any data would be exchanged.

Malaysia says it will have to buy a new radar system after revealing what it knew of the path the airliner took after turning back across its territory.

"It looks like the ball is in (others') court now and they need to decide what sort of military and other data they are willing to share with us," a Malaysian government source said.

Analysts say it will be difficult to persuade others to do the same, especially if the result would be to reveal weakness in their own defences given the numerous maritime and territorial boundary disputes going on in the region.

"Information and intelligence exchange is very sensitive in this part of the world where there is a lot of distrust and sovereign issues," said Ian Storey, a senior fellow at Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

"Countries are unwilling to share sensitive intelligence because if reveals their military capabilities - or lack of capabilities."'

uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/idUKBREA2701C20140319?irpc=932

...sorry, I mean that they would have had to have been constantly monitoring and asking which it seems from your link they don't.

I wonder if they've known for a few days but didn't say so as it didn't add new information and made them look silly. If the plan had been found I bet they'd never have come clean!

But they also are limited in the amount of information they will share.

I kind of understand because as soon as they release something the whole world creates more theories and speculation. It's natural and to be expected (I'm certainly one!) but I wonder if that then hampers an investigation? It must be agonising for the families.

On the Maldives they are sending people to question what happened. Reuters:

'In the latest of a series of possible sightings of the plane, police in the Indian Ocean island chain of the Maldives said they were investigating reports that people on one of its outer islands had seen a low-flying airplane there early on March 8. The police gave no further details.'

Plane had been found, not plan!

"The original Wired article addressed the smoke hood issue. The hoods help but aren't perfect for keeping smoke out. They buy a little time but that's all, as you can't use oxygen if there's a fire"

Thanks. I still don't think that this is what happened, why would they have programmed the extra turns at this point as well as making the turn west. But who knows?

Thank you, living

doctrine yes, true. It's also got a lot to do with what I just read about not wanting to share because of revealing military weakness or things around that vein. It's so sad that sort of thing can't be put to one side.

In reference to my last post that is just my opinion of course!

Doctrine I read your above post as "plane has been found!" That'll teach me to slow down my reading!

Oh sorry!!!

My fault, not yours!

And as was discussed on earlier threads, not all radar are manned 24/7 or things along those lines. I just would have thought, given how strident India and Kazakhstan were about a plane not going undetected, that would equal a plane flying around in unauthorised airspace being challenged. Or maybe I have watched too many films

Me too Saga - wishful thinking I guess.

I will have some coffee before I post again

TheDoctrine, the extra turn away from Langkawi could in my opinion be either an accident in an attempt to get the mechanical controls to work (I'm guessing these would be needed for landing) or, looking at the map, the most direct route to land. Perhaps the pilots gave up trying to get to an airport runway and hoped for a safe-ish crash landing elsewhere but not over water? As we know crash landings on water are almost always fatal.

I like one of the quotes from an article that said "sometimes an erratic flight pattern indicates heroism, not terrorism".

It crossed fairly close to the Thai- Malay border, didn't it - maybe it's not near any "targets" down there and was at a "normal" height so didn't trigger any worries. I guess it was in their airspace for no more than an hour.