Thread: Missing Flight MH370 / Malaysia Flight 370

Military radar data suggests a Malaysia Airlines jetliner missing for nearly a week was deliberately flown hundreds of miles off course, heightening suspicions of foul play among investigators, sources told Reuters on Friday.


Analysis of the Malaysia data suggests the plane, with 239 people on board, diverted from its intended northeast route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and flew west instead, using airline flight corridors normally employed for routes to the Middle East and Europe, said sources familiar with investigations into the Boeing 777's disappearance.

Two sources said an unidentified aircraft that investigators believe was Flight MH370 was following a route between navigational waypoints when it was last plotted on military radar off the country's northwest coast.

This indicates that it was either being flown by the pilots or someone with knowledge of those waypoints, the sources said.

Related: 6 mysterious airplane disappearances in aviation history

Photos: Missing Malaysian Airlines jet

The last plot on the military radar's tracking suggested the plane was flying toward India's Andaman Islands, a chain of isles between the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, they said.

Waypoints are geographic locations, worked out by calculating longitude and latitude, that help pilots navigate along established air corridors.

A third source familiar with the investigation said inquiries were focusing increasingly on the theory that someone who knew how to fly a plane deliberately diverted the flight.

http://news.msn.com/world/exclusive-...course-sources

Rush Limbaugh Has a Theory on What Happened to the Missing Malaysian Plane
Mar. 14, 2014 5:00pm Jason Howerton

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on Friday presented a “theory” on what happened to the missing Malaysian plane that has so far stumped the world.

“How about this theory: The jet is flying along and you have a total electronic failure but the engines keep working,” he began. “We’ve been told that the airplane kept sending data somehow, pinging a satellite even after it was lost from radar. There have been so many confusing reports on whether or not the data that was pinging was coming from the engines or not.”

Limbaugh continued: “But what happened if, and my guess is as good as any, you’ve got an airplane flying along, you have a total electronics failure but it continues to be airworthy, the engines are working. I don’t know if this is possible, given an electronic ignition and all that, let’s say it is. So then the crew says we’ve got to get back home we have got to get back to Kuala Lumpur, we can’t fly with no electronics-it’s dark, night time, they fly over a bunch of unfriendly countries and they cant identify themselves and they’re not identified, there are no lights on-there has been a total electronics failure.”

“What if some hostile country flew up there and shot it down and then discovered their mistake and nobody wants to admit that’s what happened?” he pondered.

The theory, as Limbaugh himself admits, is nothing more than a guess. In fact, theories seem to be all there are relating to the missing plane as people itch to know what really happened.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014...n=ShareButtons

Flight 370 landed? Officials say Flight 370 was hijacked, 'deliberate action'

http://www.examiner.com/article/flig...iberate-action

Malaysian leader: Plane's disappearance deliberate
The Malaysian jetliner missing for more than a week was deliberately diverted and continued flying for more than six hours after severing contact with the ground, meaning it could have gone as far northwest as Kazakhstan or into the Indian Ocean's southern reaches, Malaysia's leader said Saturday.
2 hr ago | By EILEEN NG and IAN MADER of Associated Press

Prime Minister Najib Razak's statement confirmed days of mounting speculation that the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 to Beijing was not accidental. It also refocused the investigation into the flight's 12-person crew and 227 passengers, and underlined the complicated task for searchers who already have been scouring vast areas of ocean.

"Clearly the search for MH370 has entered a new phase," Najib said at a televised news conference.

Najib stressed that investigators were looking into all possibilities as to why the Boeing 777 deviated so drastically from its original flight path, saying authorities could not confirm whether it was a hijacking. Earlier Saturday, a Malaysian official said the plane had been hijacked, though he added that no motive had been established and no demands had been made known.

"In view of this latest development, the Malaysian authorities have refocused their investigation into the crew and passengers on board," Najib told reporters, reading from a written statement but not taking any questions.

Police on Saturday went to the Kuala Lumpur homes of both the pilot and co-pilot of the missing plane, according to a guard and several local reporters. Authorities have said they will investigate the pilots as part of their probe, but have released no information about how they are progressing.

Experts have previously said that whoever disabled the plane's communication systems and then flew the jet must have had a high degree of technical knowledge and flying experience. One possibility they have raised was that one of the pilots wanted to commit suicide.

The plane departed for an overnight flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing at 12:40 a.m. on March 8. Its communications with civilian air controllers were severed at about 1:20 a.m., and the jet went missing — heralding one of the most puzzling mysteries in modern aviation history.

China, where the bulk of the passengers were from, expressed irritation over what it described as Malaysia's foot-dragging in releasing information about the search.

Investigators now have a high degree of certainty that one of the plane's communications systems — the Aircraft and Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) — was partially disabled before the aircraft reached the east coast of Malaysia, Najib said. Shortly afterward, someone on board switched off the aircraft's transponder, which communicates with civilian air traffic controllers.



Najib confirmed that Malaysian air force defense radar picked up traces of the plane turning back westward, crossing over Peninsular Malaysia into the northern stretches of the Strait of Malacca. Authorities previously had said this radar data could not be verified.

"These movements are consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane," Najib said.

Although the aircraft was flying virtually blind to air traffic controllers at this point, onboard equipment continued to send "pings" to satellites.

U.S. aviation safety experts say the shutdown of communications systems makes it clear the missing Malaysia Airlines jet was taken over by someone who knew how the plane worked.

To turn off the transponder, someone in the cockpit would have to turn a knob with multiple selections to the "off" position while pressing down at the same time, said John Goglia, a former member of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. That's something a pilot would know, but it could also be learned by someone who researched the plane on the Internet, he said.

The Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) has two aspects, Goglia said. The information part of the system was shut down, but not the transmission part. In most planes, the information section can be shut down by hitting cockpit switches in sequence in order to get to a computer screen where an option must be selected using a keypad, said Goglia, an expert on aircraft maintenance.

Related: Missing plane throws spotlight on passport theft

That's also something a pilot would know how to do, but that could also be discovered through research, he said.

But to turn off the other transmission portion of the ACARS, it would be necessary to go to an electronics bay beneath the cockpit. That's something a pilot wouldn't normally know how to do, Goglia said. The Malaysia plane's ACARS transmitter continued to send out blips that were recorded by satellite once an hour for four to five hours after the transponder was turned off. The blips don't contain any messages or data, but the satellite can tell in a very broad way what region the blips are coming from.

Malaysia's prime minister said the last confirmed signal between the plane and a satellite came at 8:11 a.m. — 7 hours and 31 minutes after takeoff. This was more than five hours later than the previous time given by Malaysian authorities as the possible last contact.

Airline officials have said the plane had enough fuel to fly for up to about eight hours.

"The investigations team is making further calculations which will indicate how far the aircraft may have flown after this last point of contact," Najib said.

He said authorities had determined that the plane's last communication with a satellite was in one of two possible arcs, or "corridors" — a northern one from northern Thailand through to the border of the Central Asian countries Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, and a southern one from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.

The northern route might theoretically have taken the plane through China, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan — which hosts U.S. military bases — and Central Asia, and it is unclear how it might have gone undetected. The region is also home to extremist Islamist groups, unstable governments and remote, sparsely populated areas.

Flying south would have put the plane over the Indian Ocean, with an average depth of 3,890 meters (12,762 feet) and thousands of kilometers (miles) from the nearest land mass.

Britain-based aviation security consultant Chris Yates thought it was highly unlikely the plane would have taken the northern route across land in Asia.

"In theory, any country that sees a strange blip is going to get fighter planes up to have a look," he said. "And if those fighter planes can't make head or tail of what it is, they will shoot it down."

Najib said search efforts in the South China Sea, where the plane first lost contact, had ended.

Indian officials said navy ships supported by long-range surveillance planes and helicopters scoured Andaman Sea islands for a third day Saturday without any success in finding evidence of the missing jet.

Two-thirds of the plane's passengers were Chinese, and China's government has been under pressure to give relatives firm news of the aircraft's fate.

In a stinging commentary on Saturday, the Chinese government's Xinhua News Agency said the Malaysian information was "painfully belated," resulting in wasted efforts and straining the nerves of relatives.

"Given today's technology, the delay smacks of either dereliction of duty or reluctance to share information in a full and timely manner," Xinhua said. "That would be intolerable."

Najib said he understood the need for families to receive information, but that his government wanted to release only fully corroborated reports. He said his country has been sharing information with international investigators, even when it meant placing "national security concerns" second to the search. U.S., British and Malaysian air safety investigators have been on the ground in Malaysia to assist with the investigation.

In the Chinese capital, relatives of passengers who have anxiously awaited news at a hotel near Beijing's airport said they felt deceived at not being told earlier about the plane's last signal. "We are going through a roller coaster, and we feel helpless and powerless," said a woman, who declined to give her name.

At least one of the relatives saw a glimmer of hope in word that the plane's disappearance was a deliberate act, rather than a crash. "It's very good," said a woman, who gave only her surname, Wen.

Malaysian police have already said they are looking at the psychological state, family life and connections of pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, and co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27. Both have been described as respectable, community-minded men.

Zaharie joined Malaysia Airlines in 1981 and had more than 18,000 hours of flying experience. His Facebook page showed an aviation enthusiast who flew remote-controlled aircraft, posting pictures of his collection, which included a lightweight twin-engine helicopter and an amphibious aircraft.

Fariq was contemplating marriage after having just graduated to the cockpit of a Boeing 777. He has drawn scrutiny after the revelation that in 2011, he and another pilot invited two women aboard their aircraft to sit in the cockpit for a flight from Phuket, Thailand, to Kuala Lumpur.

Fourteen countries are involved in the search for the plane, using 43 ships and 58 aircraft.

A U.S. P-8A Poseidon, the most advanced long-range anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare aircraft in the world, was to arrive over the weekend and sweep parts of the Indian Ocean, the U.S. Defense Department said in a statement.

http://news.msn.com/world/malaysian-...rate?gt1=51501

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and eight other aviation mysteries
CNN Staff Saturday, March 15, 2014 - 1:00pm

(CNN) — While such situations are rare, the puzzling disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370 is not the first time a plane has vanished without a trace. Here are nine cases of mysterious plane disappearances and disasters. Some remain unsolved, decades later.

2014: Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

The Boeing 777 passenger jet vanished early Saturday, about an hour into its flight from the Malaysian capital to Beijing. There was no distress call before contact with it was lost over the sea between Malaysia and Vietnam. Search teams from various nations are combing the waters on the Malay Peninsula for traces of it, but so far, nothing has been found. The mystery over the fate of the jet and the 239 people aboard has baffled government officials and aviation experts.

2009: Air France Flight 447

The Airbus A330, carrying 228 passengers and crew, took off from Rio de Janeiro en route to Paris on May 31, 2009. At 1:33 a.m. GMT on June 1, it told Brazil's Atlantic Control Center its position as it crossed the Atlantic.

That was the last contact with the plane. No authority knew what happened, and its last known position -- two to four days by ship from the nearest ports in Brazil or Senegal in West Africa -- and the ocean's depth would prove to be huge problems for searchers, who started looking dozens of miles in every direction from the point of the last transmission.

The first bodies were discovered in the ocean about 600 miles off Brazil's northern coast. But it took four searches and almost two years before the bulk of the wreckage, the majority of bodies and the voice and data recorders were recovered. All 228 died.

In 2012, French authorities said ice crystals disrupted the system used to determine the plane's airspeed, causing the autopilot to disconnect. Confused, the pilots over-handled the aircraft, and -- apparently without the pilots understanding -- the plane stalled. The pilots pointed the nose upward, rather than downward, to recover, and the plane plunged into the ocean, according to a report by French authorities.

2003: Boeing 727

Eleven years ago, a Boeing 727 vanished in the Angolan capital of Luanda.

The plane took off from the Quatro de Fevereiro International Airport on May 25, 2003, headed for Burkina Faso. It departed with its lights off and a dysfunctional transponder, Air & Space magazine reported.

There are conflicting reports on the number of people in the company jet, but flight engineer Ben Charles Padilla is believed to be one of them. Some reports say he was alone, while others say three people were aboard.

The plane has not been heard from since. Its whereabouts are unknown to this day.

1999: EgyptAir Flight 990

Fifteen years ago, EgyptAir Flight 990 made a rapid descent, plunging almost 14,000 feet in 36 seconds.

The 767 jet, en route to Cairo from New York City, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the Massachusetts coast.

Though its debris was later found after crews combed the waters, speculation remains on the cause of the October 1999 crash that killed all 217 people aboard.

Theories included a possible suicide by the pilot or co-pilot, complete with tales of a chaotic struggle for controls in the cockpit.

Egypt said it was a mechanical failure.

1996: TWA Flight 800

The Paris-bound plane exploded in midair shortly after takeoff from New York City, killing all 230 people aboard.

Witnesses said they saw a streak of light and a fireball, leading to suspicions that terrorists struck the plane with a rocket. Others blamed a meteor or a missile.

The National Transportation Safety Board ruled that the explosion was caused by an electrical short circuit, which detonated the fuel tank and caused the Boeing 747 to break into pieces in the waters off Long Island.

Despite the explanation, conspiracy theories of a government coverup abound.

1947: British Stardust

Sixty-seven years ago, a British aircraft vanished in the Argentine Andes after takeoff from Buenos Aires, headed to Chile.

After searches for the plane named Stardust turned up nothing for more than 50 years, conspiracy theorists jumped into action. But theories of aliens, among others, were invalidated in 2000, when the wreckage of the plane was found buried deep in a glacier.

The crash on August 2, 1947, killed 11 people, the BBC reported.

Stardust's final Morse code transmission was the word "STENDEC." Decades later, the meaning of the word remains a mystery.

1945: Flight 19 Navy bombers

Flight 19 does not refer to a single plane, but to five Navy bombers that disappeared off the Florida coast on December 5, 1945.

A flight instructor flew one plane, and qualified pilots with 350 to 400 hours of flight time were in the others, according to the Naval History and Heritage Command.

Radio transmissions indicated that the instructor got lost when compasses malfunctioned. Radio contact was lost before the exact problem was determined, and no traces of the planes were ever found.

Adding to the mystery, a search aircraft sent to look for Flight 19 also disappeared. The patrol plane, which took off later that day, has not been seen or heard from since.

Flight 19 was reported in the area informally known as the Bermuda Triangle.

1942: British fighter jet

A stray Royal Air Force fighter jet crashed in the blistering sands of the Egyptian Sahara on June 28, 1942.

Its pilot was never heard from again, and the damaged P-40 Kittyhawk was presumed lost forever.

But two years ago, an oil company worker discovered it 70 years after the accident. Surprisingly, it was extraordinarily well-preserved, and most of its fuselage, wings, tail and cockpit instruments were intact.

Back then, experts say, planes flew with basic supplies, so its pilot's chances of survival were not good.

1937: Amelia Earhart

The disappearance of Amelia Earhart is possibly the most famous unsolved aircraft mystery.

The groundbreaking aviator was on her most ambitious flight, vying to become the first woman to fly around the world.

In 1937, she attempted the voyage in her twin-engine Lockheed Electra. With about 7,000 miles left to go, she made a challenging landing at Howland Island in the mid-Pacific, according to her official biography.

"Despite favorable weather reports, they flew into overcast skies and intermittent rain showers," her biography states.

Her radio transmissions became unclear, and the last thing she reported over her radio was, "We are running north and south," according to her biography.

After spending $4 million and searching 250,000 square miles of ocean, the U.S. called off its search.

Many theories exist today, but her fate and that of navigator Fred Noonan remain unknown.

http://www.fox44.com/news/malaysia-a...tion-mysteries

Final words from jet came after systems shutdown
Posted: Mar 16, 2014 1:04 AM CDT
By CHRIS BRUMMITT and JIM GOMEZ Associated Press

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - When someone at the controls calmly said the last words heard from the missing Malaysian jetliner, one of the Boeing 777's communications systems had already been disabled, authorities said, adding to suspicions that one or both of the pilots were involved in the disappearance of the flight.

Investigators also were examining a flight simulator confiscated from the home of one of the pilots and dug through the background of all 239 people on board, as well as the ground crew that serviced the plane.

The Malaysia Airlines jet took off from Kuala Lumpur in the wee hours of March 8, headed to Beijing. On Saturday, the Malaysian government announced findings that strongly suggested the plane was deliberately diverted and may have flown as far north as Central Asia or south into the vast reaches of the Indian Ocean.

Authorities have said someone on board the plane first disabled one of its communications systems - the Aircraft and Communications Addressing and Reporting System, or ACARS - about 40 minutes after takeoff. The ACARS equipment sends information about the jet's engines and other data to the airline.

About 14 minutes later, the transponder that identifies the plane to commercial radar systems was also shut down. The fact that both systems went dark separately offered strong evidence that the plane's disappearance was deliberate.

On Sunday, Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told a news conference that the final, reassuring words from the cockpit - "All right, good night" - were spoken to air traffic controllers after the ACARS system was shut off. Whoever spoke did not mention any trouble on board.

Air force Maj. Gen. Affendi Buang told reporters he did not know whether it was the pilot or co-pilot who spoke to air traffic controllers.

Given the expanse of land and water that might need to be searched, finding the wreckage could take months or longer. Or it might never be located. Establishing what happened with any degree of certainty will probably require evidence from cockpit voice recordings and the plane's flight-data recorders.

The search area now includes 11 countries the plane might have flown over, Hishammuddin said, adding that the number of countries involved in the operation had increased from 14 to 25.

"The search was already a highly complex, multinational effort," he said. "It has now become even more difficult."

The search effort initially focused on the relatively shallow waters of the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca, where the plane was first thought to be. Hishammuddin said he has asked governments to hand over sensitive radar and satellite data to try to get a better idea of the plane's final movements.

With more information, he said, the search zone could be narrowed "to an area that is more feasible."

Investigators have said the last known position of the plane could be anywhere on a huge arc spanning from Kazakhstan down to the southern stretches of the Indian Ocean. Given that a northern route would have sent the plane over countries with busy airspace, most experts say the person in control of the aircraft would more likely have chosen to go south. The southern Indian Ocean is the world's third-deepest and one of the most remote stretches of water in the world, with little radar coverage.

Australia has a powerful military radar system with an approximate range of 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles) used to monitor the Indian Ocean west of the country. But the radar would have to have been pointed in the right direction at the right time to have picked up detailed flight activity, said John Blaxland of the Australian National University's Strategic and Defence Studies Centre.

Without any alarms triggered at the time, the radar data probably would have recorded at most a blip on a screen, which likely wouldn't provide enough information to track the plane, Blaxland said Monday.

"So to expect that's going to deliver some kind of miraculous tracking of an aircraft over a week ago ... I think we might be a bit disappointed," Blaxland said.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he will speak with Malaysian officials Monday to see if they wanted additional search help.

Asked whether any Australian agency had picked up any information suggesting the plane flew near Australia, Abbott said: "I don't have any information to that effect, but all of our agencies that could possibly help in this area are scouring their data to see if there's anything they can add to the understanding of this mystery."

Malaysia is leading the search for the plane and the investigation into its disappearance.

In the United States, Dan Pfeiffer, senior adviser to President Barack Obama, told NBC's "Meet the Press" that the FBI was supporting the criminal probe.

Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security subcommittee on counterterrorism and intelligence, said on ABC's "This Week" that so far "there's nothing out there indicating it's terrorists."

Investigators are trying to answer these questions: If the two pilots were involved in the disappearance, were they working together or alone, or with one or more of the passengers or crew? Did they fly the plane under duress or of their own will? Did one or more of the passengers manage to break into the cockpit or use the threat of violence to gain entry and then seize the plane? And what possible motive could there be for diverting the jet?

Malaysia's police chief, Khalid Abu Bakar, said he asked countries with citizens on board the plane to investigate their backgrounds, no doubt looking for anyone with terrorism ties, aviation skills or prior contact with the pilots. He said that the intelligence agencies of some countries had already done so and found nothing suspicious, but he was waiting for others to respond.

Police searched the homes of both pilots Saturday, the first time they had done so since the plane vanished, the government said. Asked why it took them so long, Khalid said authorities "didn't see the necessity in the early stages."

Police confiscated the elaborate flight simulator that one of the pilots, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, had built in his home and reassembled it in their offices to study it for clues, Khalid said.

Zaharie, 53, who has three grown children and one grandchild, had previously posted photos online of the simulator, which was made with three large computer monitors and other accessories. Earlier this week, the head of Malaysia Airlines said the simulator was not in itself cause for any suspicion.

Malaysian police were also investigating engineers and ground staff who may have had contact with the plane before it took off, Khalid said.

Even though the ACARS system was disabled on Flight 370, it continued to emit faint hourly pulses that were recorded by a satellite. The last "ping" was sent out at 8:11 a.m. - 7 hours and 31 minutes after the plane took off. That placed the jet somewhere in a huge arc as far north as Kazakhstan in Central Asia or far into the southern Indian Ocean.

While many people believe the plane has crashed, there is a small possibility it may have landed somewhere and be relatively intact. Affendi, the air force general, and Hishammuddin, the defense minister, said it was possible for the plane to "ping" when it was on the ground if its electrical systems were up and running.

Australia said it was sending one of its two AP-3C Orion aircraft involved in the search to remote islands in the Indian Ocean at Malaysia's request. The plane will search the north and west of the Cocos Islands, a remote Australian territory with an airstrip about 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) southwest of Indonesia, military chief Gen. David Hurley said.

Whoever disabled the plane's communication systems and then flew the jet must have had a high degree of technical knowledge and flying experience, putting one or both of the pilots high on the list of possible suspects, Malaysian officials and aviation experts said.

http://www.wafb.com/story/24987220/f...ampaign=buffer

A Startlingly Simple Theory About the Missing Malaysia Airlines Jet
By Chris Goodfellow 03.18.14 6:30 AM

There has been a lot of speculation about Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Terrorism, hijacking, meteors. I cannot believe the analysis on CNN; it’s almost disturbing. I tend to look for a simpler explanation, and I find it with the 13,000-foot runway at Pulau Langkawi.

We know the story of MH370: A loaded Boeing 777 departs at midnight from Kuala Lampur, headed to Beijing. A hot night. A heavy aircraft. About an hour out, across the gulf toward Vietnam, the plane goes dark, meaning the transponder and secondary radar tracking go off. Two days later we hear reports that Malaysian military radar (which is a primary radar, meaning the plane is tracked by reflection rather than by transponder interrogation response) has tracked the plane on a southwesterly course back across the Malay Peninsula into the Strait of Malacca.

The left turn is the key here. Zaharie Ahmad Shah1 was a very experienced senior captain with 18,000 hours of flight time. We old pilots were drilled to know what is the closest airport of safe harbor while in cruise. Airports behind us, airports abeam us, and airports ahead of us. They’re always in our head. Always. If something happens, you don’t want to be thinking about what are you going to do–you already know what you are going to do. When I saw that left turn with a direct heading, I instinctively knew he was heading for an airport. He was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi, a 13,000-foot airstrip with an approach over water and no obstacles. The captain did not turn back to Kuala Lampur because he knew he had 8,000-foot ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier toward Langkawi, which also was closer.

Take a look at this airport on Google Earth. https://www.google.com/maps/@6.32836.../data=!3m1!1e3 The pilot did all the right things. He was confronted by some major event onboard that made him make an immediate turn to the closest, safest airport.

When I heard this I immediately brought up Google Earth and searched for airports in proximity to the track toward the southwest.

For me, the loss of transponders and communications makes perfect sense in a fire. And there most likely was an electrical fire. In the case of a fire, the first response is to pull the main busses and restore circuits one by one until you have isolated the bad one. If they pulled the busses, the plane would go silent. It probably was a serious event and the flight crew was occupied with controlling the plane and trying to fight the fire. Aviate, navigate, and lastly, communicate is the mantra in such situations.

There are two types of fires. An electrical fire might not be as fast and furious, and there may or may not be incapacitating smoke. However there is the possibility, given the timeline, that there was an overheat on one of the front landing gear tires, it blew on takeoff and started slowly burning. Yes, this happens with underinflated tires. Remember: Heavy plane, hot night, sea level, long-run takeoff. There was a well known accident in Nigeria of a DC8 that had a landing gear fire on takeoff. Once going, a tire fire would produce horrific, incapacitating smoke. Yes, pilots have access to oxygen masks, but this is a no-no with fire. Most have access to a smoke hood with a filter, but this will last only a few minutes depending on the smoke level. (I used to carry one in my flight bag, and I still carry one in my briefcase when I fly.)

What I think happened is the flight crew was overcome by smoke and the plane continued on the heading, probably on George (autopilot), until it ran out of fuel or the fire destroyed the control surfaces and it crashed. You will find it along that route–looking elsewhere is pointless.



Ongoing speculation of a hijacking and/or murder-suicide and that there was a flight engineer on board does not sway me in favor of foul play until I am presented with evidence of foul play.

We know there was a last voice transmission that, from a pilot’s point of view, was entirely normal. “Good night” is customary on a hand-off to a new air traffic control. The “good night” also strongly indicates to me that all was OK on the flight deck. Remember, there are many ways a pilot can communicate distress. A hijack code or even transponder code off by one digit would alert ATC that something was wrong. Every good pilot knows keying an SOS over the mike always is an option. Even three short clicks would raise an alert. So I conclude that at the point of voice transmission all was perceived as well on the flight deck by the pilots.

But things could have been in the process of going wrong, unknown to the pilots.

Evidently the ACARS went inoperative some time before. Disabling the ACARS is not easy, as pointed out. This leads me to believe more in an electrical problem or an electrical fire than a manual shutdown. I suggest the pilots probably were not aware ACARS was not transmitting.

As for the reports of altitude fluctuations, given that this was not transponder-generated data but primary radar at maybe 200 miles, the azimuth readings can be affected by a lot of atmospherics and I would not have high confidence in this being totally reliable. But let’s accept for a minute that the pilot may have ascended to 45,000 feet in a last-ditch effort to quell a fire by seeking the lowest level of oxygen. That is an acceptable scenario. At 45,000 feet, it would be tough to keep this aircraft stable, as the flight envelope is very narrow and loss of control in a stall is entirely possible. The aircraft is at the top of its operational ceiling. The reported rapid rates of descent could have been generated by a stall, followed by a recovery at 25,000 feet. The pilot may even have been diving to extinguish flames.

But going to 45,000 feet in a hijack scenario doesn’t make any good sense to me.

Regarding the additional flying time: On departing Kuala Lampur, Flight 370 would have had fuel for Beijing and an alternate destination, probably Shanghai, plus 45 minutes–say, 8 hours. Maybe more. He burned 20-25 percent in the first hour with takeoff and the climb to cruise. So when the turn was made toward Langkawi, he would have had six hours or more hours worth of fuel. This correlates nicely with the Inmarsat data pings being received until fuel exhaustion.

The now known continued flight until time to fuel exhaustion only confirms to me that the crew was incapacitated and the flight continued on deep into the south Indian ocean.

There is no point speculating further until more evidence surfaces, but in the meantime it serves no purpose to malign pilots who well may have been in a struggle to save this aircraft from a fire or other serious mechanical issue. Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah was a hero struggling with an impossible situation trying to get that plane to Langkawi. There is no doubt in my mind. That’s the reason for the turn and direct route. A hijacking would not have made that deliberate left turn with a direct heading for Langkawi. It probably would have weaved around a bit until the hijackers decided where they were taking it.

Surprisingly, none of the reporters, officials, or other pilots interviewed have looked at this from the pilot’s viewpoint: If something went wrong, where would he go? Thanks to Google Earth I spotted Langkawi in about 30 seconds, zoomed in and saw how long the runway was and I just instinctively knew this pilot knew this airport. He had probably flown there many times.

Fire in an aircraft demands one thing: Get the machine on the ground as soon as possible. There are two well-remembered experiences in my memory. The AirCanada DC9 which landed, I believe, in Columbus, Ohio in the 1980s. That pilot delayed descent and bypassed several airports. He didn’t instinctively know the closest airports. He got it on the ground eventually, but lost 30-odd souls. The 1998 crash of Swissair DC-10 off Nova Scotia was another example of heroic pilots. They were 15 minutes out of Halifax but the fire overcame them and they had to ditch in the ocean. They simply ran out of time. That fire incidentally started when the aircraft was about an hour out of Kennedy. Guess what? The transponders and communications were shut off as they pulled the busses.

Get on Google Earth and type in Pulau Langkawi and then look at it in relation to the radar track heading. Two plus two equals four. For me, that is the simple explanation why it turned and headed in that direction. Smart pilot. He just didn’t have the time.


http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03...ectrical-fire/

CNN: Did a Black Hole Make Flight 370 Disappear?
Taylor Berman Today 11:39am

Last night, CNN anchor Don Lemon posed an interesting question to his guests: Did a black hole cause Flight 370 to vanish? "A lot of people have been asking about black holes and on and on....I know it's preposterous, but is it preposterous, Mary?" Lemon asked Mary Schiavo, a former Inspector General at the Department of Transportation.

Schiavo's response: "Well, you know, even a small black hole would suck in our entire universe, so we know it's not that. The Bermuda Triangle is often weather, and LOST is a, uh, TV show. "

Great job, CNN. Next time maybe ask Courtney Love?

http://gawker.com/cnn-did-a-black-ho...ear-1548003099


Courtney Love Thinks She Found Flight 370 http://gawker.com/courtney-love-thin...370-1545707048

24 March 2014 Last updated at 17:38 ET

Flight MH370 'crashed in south Indian Ocean'

Malaysia's prime minister has announced that missing flight MH370 crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.

Najib Razak said this was the conclusion of fresh analysis of satellite data tracking the flight.

Malaysia Airlines had told the families of the 239 people on board, he said.

The BBC has seen a text message sent to families by the airline saying it had to be assumed "beyond reasonable doubt" that the plane was lost and there were no survivors.

There were 227 passengers on flight MH370, many of them Chinese.

Relatives of those on board who watched the announcement at a Beijing hotel wept with grief, and some were taken away on stretchers by medical teams.

Passengers' relatives in China took in the news with a mixture of deep anguish and some anger
China has demanded that the Malaysian authorities make available the evidence on which they based their announcement about the jet's fate.

And some relatives of Chinese passengers expressed scepticism about their conclusion, as the plane has not been found yet.

Flight MH370 disappeared after taking off on 8 March from Kuala Lumpur. A big international search operation has been taking place in the southern Indian Ocean, along the southern arc or corridor of the plane's possible route, more than 1,500 miles (2,500km) off the south-west coast of Australia.

In the past day, both Australian and Chinese air force crews have reported spotting debris.

The unidentified objects have been seen in separate parts of the vast search area, in some of the world's most treacherous and remote waters.

Heartbreaking

The announcement by Prime Minister Najib Razak came at a late-night news conference in Kuala Lumpur.

It was based on new analysis by British satellite firm Inmarsat, which provided satellite data, and the UK's Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB).

The firms "have concluded that MH370 flew along the southern corridor, and that its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth," Mr Razak said.

"This is a remote location, far from any possible landing sites. It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that, according to this new data, flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean."

Mr Razak appealed to the media to respect the privacy of the families of the passengers and crew, saying the wait for information had been heartbreaking and this latest news harder still.

Footage from an Royal Australian Air Force P-3 Orion aircraft shows a smoke marker where an object was spotted

Malaysia Airlines later said it informed the majority of the families in advance of the prime minister's statement in person and by telephone, and that text messages "were used only as an additional means of communicating with the families."

The text messages read "Malaysia Airlines deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board survived... we must now accept all evidence suggests the plane went down in the Southern Indian Ocean."

Selamat Omar, the father of a 29-year-old aviation engineer who was on the flight, said some family members of other passengers broke down in tears at the news. "We accept the news of the tragedy. It is fate,'' Selamat told Associated Press in Kuala Lumpur.

analysis methods

Inmarsat had already revealed that it did indeed receive signals - automated "pings" - from the plane over its satellite network after the aircraft ceased radio and radar contact.

Sources told the BBC that flight MH370 continued to ping for at least five hours after the aircraft left Malaysian airspace - which indicated the plane was intact and powered.

And initial analysis showed the location of the final "ping" was probably along one of two vast arcs running north and south.

Monday was the fifth day of operations to search remote areas of the southern Indian Ocean
On Monday, the Malaysian prime minister said Inmarsat had been able to shed further light on the plane's flight path by performing further calculations on the MH370 data "using a type of analysis never before used in an investigation of this sort".

According to Inmarsat, this involved a totally new way of modelling, which was why it took time.

The company told the BBC the new calculation involved crunching far more data and that engineers spent all weekend looking back at previous Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 flights.

They compared the satellite data from those flights with flight MH370 and were able to work out that it went south.

As far as the engineers could tell, the plane was flying at a cruising height above 30,000ft, but its final position could not be pinpointed more clearly, says BBC Transport correspondent Richard Westcott.

Inmarsat gave the AAIB the new data on Sunday, it said, which had to be checked before it could be made public.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26716572