Malaysian Airlines Flight MH-370 goes missing

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 12 Mar 2014 08:27

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/mala ... cca-strait

saip · Post by **saip** » 12 Mar 2014 09:19

Strange. The chief and the defense minister were on a C130 searching malacca straits. --CNN

nawabs · Post by **nawabs** » 12 Mar 2014 09:50

http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/catego ... for-mh370/

Now the Vietnamese Govt has said they are suspending operations for now as they await clarity from the Malaysian Govt. Viet Nam deputy minister of transport is reported as asking for clarity twice but with no response. Further, to muddy the waters further, he says Vietnam told Malaysia on the very first loss of contact with the plane, that it had turned back West.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 12 Mar 2014 09:52

are the malays trying to save face for being late on the malacca thing or its some genuine coverup going on?

nawabs · Post by **nawabs** » 12 Mar 2014 10:05

777 has had had a request or notice in for change to FBW (Fly-by-wire) computer/reporting systems for security reasons- that there is a common (wired) link somehow between some of the FBW reporting systems and the inflight passenger entertainment systems- and possibly subject to hacking.

https://www.federalregister.gov/article ... nic-system

Malaysia Airlines mystery: US issued warnings over Boeing 777 'weak spot'

Potential weakness in fuselage of Boeing 777s was identified by the Federal Aviation Administration last year

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -spot.html

chaanakya · Post by **chaanakya** » 12 Mar 2014 10:22

chaanakya wrote:
ramana wrote:One thing I am not clear is if Interpol "lost passport" database is accessible for airlines or only police forces? If the later then the Interpol chief is talking through his hat and scoring cheap points at this time.
It is available to Immigration officials at the airports.

ramana wrote: Not really....
Interpol to allow two airlines to access passport database

No Immigration Authorities do have access to Interpol database of lost passports and RCN.
Private Airlines do not have access to the database but national authorities do have. The report quoted by you also mentions the same.

Up to now, only national authorities such as border police have been allowed to verify whether passengers' passports turn up in the database of some 40 million stolen or lost passports in the computer systems of the Lyon, France-based international police agency — not airlines or other private sector companies.

asprinzl · Post by **asprinzl** » 12 Mar 2014 10:33

Malaysian authorities are in a very tricky situation. Malaysia has a huge tourism industry and take pride in their security services especially airport security which had successfully interdicted many attempts at transporting bombs and drugs. A terror connection would potentially bring negative light onto the tourism trade. And would also bring negative light on the underground trade in stolen western passports. It would also highlight gaps in security. All these are potentially negative impact on a carefully cultivated image of Malaysia.

The airline is losing money for th last two years. It also had a history of losing money in the past and had to be bailed out by the government. In actuality it is a semi-government outfit. Pilot error /negligence or pilot's nefarious act would bring negative light onto the already suffering airline.

All in all it does not look good on a very carefully cultivated image of clean/efficient Malaysia. That is why the authorities are moving very carefully.

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 12 Mar 2014 10:33

Singha wrote:are the malays trying to save face for being late on the malacca thing or its some genuine coverup going on?

Mostly it is lack of competence combined with ambition and zeal for their own 15 minutes of fame -- from australian "ladies" complaining about access to the cockpit two years ago, to air force chief and ministers wanting face time.

If the wreckage were near vietnam, it would have been found by now. If the military radar track is discounted (as it is now), this is mostly just a waste of fuel by the SAR folks. No one knows where to look.

asprinzl · Post by **asprinzl** » 12 Mar 2014 10:39

The South China Sea and Malacca Straits are two of the most surveilled regions in the world. SCS is covered by satelites very extensively by China, USA, Japan, Taiwan, Russia and Europeans.....all due to the sensitive Spartly islands dispute. MS is covered extensively due to the traffic and piracy. If there was an incident over the air, it would have been recorded. It didnt happen. The plane diverted and took a different direction.

nawabs · Post by **nawabs** » 12 Mar 2014 10:56

Seems that there are 2 transponders in 777, selectable via transponder panel. And when changing code, you have to put it in standby mode in order to avoid the emergency 7500 code (indicating unlawful intrusion in cockpit). Maybe hypoxia set in due to depressurization before they could enter the new code. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transponder_(aviation)

In case of total electrical generation failure = RAT (Ram Air Turbine) would deploy and power the necessary electrics. The aircraft is still controllable as the FBW is then powered by the RAT through the necessary electrical buses.

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 12 Mar 2014 11:14

asprinzl wrote:The South China Sea and Malacca Straits are two of the most surveilled regions in the world. SCS is covered by satelites very extensively by China, USA, Japan, Taiwan, Russia and Europeans.....all due to the sensitive Spartly islands dispute. MS is covered extensively due to the traffic and piracy. If there was an incident over the air, it would have been recorded. It didnt happen. The plane diverted and took a different direction.

The original theory was disintegration. Still not discounted. Crowdsourcing and all, nada. Diversion/decompression is a possibility -- but where? CFT or uncontrolled? With the evidence so far the plane could be whole, in water somewhere, and sink -- and pretty much everything including UFO abduction is possible (strange lights and noises!!).

Only the human intervention/hijack theory is weak. Why not turn after transponder is off, instead of turning it off mid-turn? Why do we think the turn/heading data is any more reliable than a few bad sensor readings before the comm. stopped?

The investigation has quickly turned non-serious, so lets see if/when any real data is available. The surveillance assets above are probably searching wider area -- now in day light. If I were a betting man, I would still say decompression, followed by a long uncontrolled flight.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 12 Mar 2014 11:41

I would doubt indonesia has any tfta surveillance assets over their vast territory. maybe over java which is their core...but over sumatra could be loose. even india has no radar coverage over vast swathes of territory.

nawabs · Post by **nawabs** » 12 Mar 2014 11:53

MISSING MH370: Hopes as fishermen find life raft near Port Dickson

http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color ... ft-near-pd 1.509222#sthash.d2PCt0kx.dpuf

A group of fishermen found a life raft bearing the word “Boarding” 10 nautical miles from Port Dickson town at 12pm yesterday. One of the fishermen, Azman Mohamad, 40, said they found the badly damaged raft floating and immediately notified the Kuala Linggi Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) in Malacca for assistance to lift the raft as it was very heavy.

"We managed to tie it to our boat as we feared it would sink due to the damages," he said.

When the MMEA boat arrived, the fishermen then handed over the raft into their custody. However, a Kuala Linggi MMEA spokesman said the raft sunk into the sea while they were trying to bring the raft onboard.

While BBC is reporting that oil rig workers have seen a burning plane off the coast of Vietnam. The location given by the Oil Rig worker relates closely to the position the Cathay Pacific crew reported debris in the water

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 12 Mar 2014 12:49

^^^^^
http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color ... d-1.509222

Can we ask the evil 6th coujin for an award for competence yet?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 12 Mar 2014 13:27

the slide that comes out of the emergency door detaches somehow and is supposed to form a raft I think. it would not be black but all orange for higher visibility I think. and its not a proper raft , more like a inflatable banana boat that people can cling on to.
https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/imag ... uYB_AJaBTI
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/6 ... 589750.jpg

proper rafts that come off ships have equpt, roof and wall, beacon light, emergency radio..some are quite tfta.

amit · Post by **amit** » 12 Mar 2014 13:30

nawabs wrote:MISSING MH370: Hopes as fishermen find life raft near Port Dickson

http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color ... ft-near-pd 1.509222#sthash.d2PCt0kx.dpuf

A group of fishermen found a life raft bearing the word “Boarding” 10 nautical miles from Port Dickson town at 12pm yesterday. One of the fishermen, Azman Mohamad, 40, said they found the badly damaged raft floating and immediately notified the Kuala Linggi Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) in Malacca for assistance to lift the raft as it was very heavy.

"We managed to tie it to our boat as we feared it would sink due to the damages," he said.

When the MMEA boat arrived, the fishermen then handed over the raft into their custody. However, a Kuala Linggi MMEA spokesman said the raft sunk into the sea while they were trying to bring the raft onboard.

While BBC is reporting that oil rig workers have seen a burning plane off the coast of Vietnam. The location given by the Oil Rig worker relates closely to the position the Cathay Pacific crew reported debris in the water

The MH370 accident is becoming murkier by the day. The flight was going to Beijing for KL. So what the hell was is doing over Malacca Straits which is exactly in the opposite direction. And Port Dickson fishermen were careful to ensure that the raft didn't sink but the experts allowed the raft to sink?

vina · Post by **vina** » 12 Mar 2014 13:53

This looks more and more like a deliberate fly into the sea incident to me, exactly similar to the Egypt Air flight where the pilot muttering some "Tawakkul Allah something" flew that into the sea and the Silk Air flight where the pilot flew the plane into the sea (was it for insurance money , the Singaporeans covered that up pretty well).

No way, it can happen otherwise, without any emergency Mayday calls, no communications and transponders turned off. Either the pilots did that, or the persons who managed to get the yoke did that drive into the drink at a precise point of their choosing.

The plane cannot have gone too far without getting into the radar coverage of Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia etc, and also west into the Andaman sea without IAF and IN radars picking it up. The rough area is known. It cannot have gone outside the zone without radar getting it. Either the guys with the Radar data are lying (I think Malaysia most probably) or they are covering up something and not letting out info and putting out red herrings like that raft and this and that.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 12 Mar 2014 14:13

the next revelation could well come from Cheen. most of the pax were theirs and they are angry + want to show off as big bro with superior resources.

they will go the full 9 yards in raising the wreck if its found just to prove a point.

nawabs · Post by **nawabs** » 12 Mar 2014 14:42

Transport minister says that search is going to continue in the east too which means they are not sure if the plane made it to the west. He did confirm that last sighting of the plane was picked up by the military. ATC lost radar contact at 1.31am, but military got something at 02:15, 200 nm northwest of Penang but they have no clue what it was.

If FAA/NTSB can positively confirm the unidentified plot on primary radar is MH370 the radar track will be made public on Thursday. Statement of Minister of Defense

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 12 Mar 2014 16:09

Why was there no emergency call? Was it a bomb? Who knows more than they're letting on? What's really going on with flight MH370
http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/new ... 84718.html

What the world is asking,but getting few answers.that too late.

This case is getting curioser and curioser by the day.The whole truth is not being let out by the authorities.Apparently they knew days ago about the Iranian youths being trying to illegally get to Europe,etc.
Now the tale that military radar picked up (not live!! Imagine no one monitoring a mysterious entry into one's airspace,there's some BS here) ,found out later,that there was a track of an aircraft into the Malacca Straits,"which originated from the point where the civilian aircraft was last tracked". Now the angle of this track was an acute angle ,almost as if in the reverse direction.But was it that of the same civilian MH-370 or another? Could there have been a collision between the two as their paths definitely crossed?

Was this flight a secret military flight which is why no one is revealing more details? I mentioned in an earlier post the TWA 800 flight,shot down by accident allegedly by a missile during a top secret US mil. exercise.Given the increased activity of the PLAN in the Indo-China Sea ,it is not unusual for the US and other littoral nations to carry put classified mil./air operations in the region.Perhaps a drone or some other ELINT aircraft managed to affect in some way the functioning of the MH aircraft.

Some years ago in the A&N islands,in very bad weather,a large aircraft allegedly flew over Indian territory very low and crashed outside our territorial waters.there was massive activity by the USN,aircraft and ships over the next few days searching for the crashed plane. The Indian authorities were not contacted.There was no mention of anything in the media,as to what happened ...to this day. If the IN found out the truth of the matter,it is keeping mum.The USN is known to have some P-3 Orions which are actually spyplanes,fitted with secret electronic eavesdropping eqpt., for ELINT and other purposes.These pick up radar and electronic signatures of any warship,plane or ground radar/commns. covertly.This is what also happened in the case of KAL 007,which was shot down by the Soviets after trespassing its airspace.In that case,a US ELINT aircraft was flying higher than the KAL plane which was waiting for the Soviet air defences,air defence radars,ABM defences,etc.,to light up at the sign of the KAL intruder.Which is what happened.The Russian pilots were given the order to shoot the aircraft down when it didn't respond to calls ,and dis so just before ir exited Soviet air space. A huge hullabaloo was made out about callous cold-blooded Russian pilots,while the covert role of the spyplane was never mentioned until discovered much later.

The truth about MH-370 likewise may never come out even if the debris is found.There ha sbene enough time to cover up and clean up.

Sri · Post by **Sri** » 12 Mar 2014 16:31

If the plane came to Malacca Straight, then it should have been picked by assets of many countries, including India's.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 12 Mar 2014 16:42

That story sounds bogus. First, the photo looks way too clean to have been taken with an ordinary camera (cellphone?) held by fishermen on a boat. And did they have any other photos, like "Abdul, Rafeeq and I holding raft and grinning"?

Next is the truly incredible tale that the raft "sank" while the Malaysian Einsteins were handling the extremely tough job of typing a rubber thingy to their boat or ship. Come on! Why didn't the captain dump the Officer-In-Charge (or the crew dump the captain) into the drink to catch it and hold on till they got it tied again? Didn't look like it was very stormy out there, from the photo.

The raft was probably identified immediately by the ship crew as a piece of junk from Pakis practising landing off Mumbai for the next terrorist attack. What "badly damaged"? Fire? How did it stay afloat for 4 days after a disaster with all the damage just until the fishermen caught it, and then sank like a stone when the Einsteins caught it?

The story rings bogus.

rohitvats · Post by **rohitvats** » 12 Mar 2014 17:06

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking ... radar-fix/

After running more than two and a half hours late the day five media briefing in Kuala Lumpur has come up with a new last possible radar trace for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

It was picked up by defence radar at 2.15 am on Saturday morning, 200 nautical miles or 360 kilometres NW of Penang as an unidentified aircraft at 29,500 feet according to the chief of the Royal Malaysia Air Force, Rodzali Daud.

This is almost precisely where Mr Rodzali earlier today denied saying to the Malaysia Media that this was where defence radar saw the missing airliner after it was tracked flying across the Malaysia peninsula to the northern approach to the main Strait of Malacca.

In other words, in this very chaotic media conference, the air force chief confirmed what he denied he said yesterday, although he did not go into as much detail as was reported in the national media.

This time he said “I am not saying it was MH370.” And he also gave the radar trace a new time, 2.15 am local time, not 2.40 am, which was coincidentally or otherwise the time of last contact with the airliner originally given by Malaysia Airlines before it began a process of changing times and event descriptions on a regular and confusing basis.

It was made clear, through the clutter of the media conference, that this radar sighting inspired the original extension of the search area from the Gulf of Thailand to include the western side of the Malaysia peninsula, and today’s further extension much deeper into the Andaman Sea.

MH370 was a 777-200 service carrying 239 passenger and crew on a regular Kuala Lumpur to Beijing service. To recap, it left KL at 12.40 am, it disappeared as a commercial radar trace at 1.22 am close to the area where such radar visibility to the Malaysia air traffic control system drops off, and was never observed as entering Vietnam controlled air space on a path intended to cross that country to the South China Sea and continue past Hong Kong toward its destination.

There are reports of emergency frequency radio contact with MH370 up to 1.30 am, which haven’t been convincingly ruled out, and which was originally the revised time Malaysia Airlines said it had its last contact with the airliner in the same breath that it said it lost the radar trace at 1.22 am.

It is this constant stumbling over what should be precise and unambiguous markers for the progress of MH370 which have helped undermine the credibility of the airline, which seems to be rewriting the basic information every time it opens its mouth.

This Wednesday night’s delayed media conference was a hair tearer for the technical aviation media because for its brief duration the panel reversed the usual definition of primary and secondary radar, referring to the primary radar used by Malaysia defence as being secondary in purpose, and the secondary commercial radar as performing the primary role. Which is both right sounding but wrong.

The commercial radar uses transponders on airliners to identify them by flight number to air traffic controllers. The defence radars primarily record flying objects without using transponder generated identification for commercial flights.

The acting transport minister and minister of defence Hishammuddin Hussein said that apart from looking further into the Andaman Sea, the search would also maintain a dual focus on the South China Sea between Vietnam and Hong Kong.

The air force chief Rodzali Daud said the agencies from other countries were helping Malaysia reconcile the radar traces picked up by defence radar with those recorded by the commercial air traffic control radars as well as enable a better understanding as to what the military radar saw near Pulau Perak, as he didn’t say to the Malaysian media yesterday.

If it wasn’t an airliner looking like an airliner at 29,500 feet in Malaysia airspace that was seen by the defence radar, at a point where it should also have been easily discoverable by normal civilian ATC radar that in itself on a ‘normal’ day would be a puzzle that the authorities would presumably try to resolve without delay.

What is so frustrating in the lack of detail given by the Malaysian authorities is their failure to address such obvious questions. It would have known precisely what by way of scheduled airliners was flying over western Malaysia on Saturday morning. It doesn’t need military radar to answer that question.

These evasions or omissions in the briefing last night make it overwhelmingly likely that the original reports attributed to Rodzali Daud were correct, and that there is a cover up of important detail being attempted by the authorities, with less and less success with every day.

If they are in the Andaman or South China Seas, the traces of those who were on board MH370 are rapidly vanishing, and the dispersal of floating items of wreckage will make the location of the crash site and the black box flight data and voice recorders, which would have sunk, that much more difficult to find.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 12 Mar 2014 17:45

rohitvas and ramana:

Now read this:

A senior Malaysian air force official on Tuesday told CNN that after the plane lost all communications around 1:30 a.m. Saturday, it still showed up on radar for more than an hour longer. Before it vanished altogether, the plane apparently turned away from its intended destination and traveled hundreds of miles off course, the official said.

It was last detected, according to the official, near Pulau Perak, a very small island in the Straits of Malacca, the body of water between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

See on previous page where I posted the Al Jazeera report that came when the aircraft was first declared missing. That said clearly that contact was maintained until 2:40AM!!!!

At the same time they were giving the last contact point as near Vietnam.

The Abduls are doing what they do best: total confusion.

There is something seriously wrong going on here. As I said before, in such cases, one HAS to believe the FIRST report, which is made before anyone realized the implications of what they are saying. After that the spin starts, to adjust the data to fit pre-approved conclusions. And for sure, there is a LOT of spin in progress now. I hope the PLA doesn't land in Kuala Lumpur and take over the country to teach them how to read clocks. No wonder people were throwing bottles at Malaysian airlines staff, poor guys!

Cosmo_R · Post by **Cosmo_R** » 12 Mar 2014 17:55

"BEIJING – The media shouldn’t issue unconfirmed reports about the missing airliner, Malaysia’s civil aviation chief complained this week, as it only raised people’s hopes and hampered the investigation.

And then Azharuddin Abdul Rahman proceeded to issue the latest in a series of contradictory statements on the missing plane – statements from the Malaysians that have added to the confusion, infuriated passengers’ relatives and frustrated nearby governments."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wor ... e/?hpid=z2

Sounds like the Shindes are in full control.

nawabs · Post by **nawabs** » 12 Mar 2014 18:07

Maybe we should also consider the background of the figures of authority which is dealing with the situation in Malaysia. Maybe they are unused to being questioned time and again by international media. For domestic consumption they say it, they say it once, it’s the truth. Their exposure to media will most likely have been non-confrontational in the past, their interviews with the press well managed by their media handlers.

Suddenly, however, they find themselves in the stressful if not confrontational arena of international media, being beamed into homes all around the World. Not an easy place to be with skilled reporters trying to pick holes in your story, to get the “angle”, to solve the mystery. Not an easy place to be either if your service - Army, Navy or Air Force - hasn’t been as efficient as it should have been or if the hideously expensive equipment which was bought didn’t live up to its expectations.

Add in fears over disclosing too much about defense structures, responses, states of readiness and it is surprising these people dare to open their mouths. I mean India (and as Phillips ji mentioned in a previous post about the US asset crashing near Andaman) and US certainly must have the area under tight surveillance, everyone is very quiet because nobody want to reveal their capabilities.

CRamS · Post by **CRamS** » 12 Mar 2014 18:11

Guys, I was watching cable noise network (CNN), the other day, and something NTSB expert mentioned caught my attention. He gave the example of 2 flights disappearing at sea in Hawaii a while back. This mystified him and his team. And after 2 years, they found that challenger was being deployed around the same time, and the satellite GPS was disabled for the launch, and this affected the 2 planes as the pilots got disoriented and got lost at sea. Any chance something like this could have happened. But even it did, the transponder would still have been working. So still a mystery.

As an aside, this maybe more apt in the Indian media thread, but CNN was reeling off many air crashes of the past. And of course, they had their Russia bashing fill on the shooting down of the SKorean airliner by Russians. But no word, nada, zilch, on US shooting down an Iranian airliner wantonly killing all onboard. Thats why I call US media is the 5th arm of US govt. A sophisticated propaganda machine.

panduranghari · Post by **panduranghari** » 12 Mar 2014 18:25

Did US make this flight disappear, to detract from their folly in Ukraine?

rohitvats · Post by **rohitvats** » 12 Mar 2014 18:40

UlanBatori wrote:rohitvas and ramana:

Now read this:
A senior Malaysian air force official on Tuesday told CNN that after the plane lost all communications around 1:30 a.m. Saturday, it still showed up on radar for more than an hour longer. Before it vanished altogether, the plane apparently turned away from its intended destination and traveled hundreds of miles off course, the official said.

It was last detected, according to the official, near Pulau Perak, a very small island in the Straits of Malacca, the body of water between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
See on previous page where I posted the Al Jazeera report that came when the aircraft was first declared missing. That said clearly that contact was maintained until 2:40AM!!!!

At the same time they were giving the last contact point as near Vietnam.

The Abduls are doing what they do best: total confusion.

There is something seriously wrong going on here. As I said before, in such cases, one HAS to believe the FIRST report, which is made before anyone realized the implications of what they are saying. After that the spin starts, to adjust the data to fit pre-approved conclusions. And for sure, there is a LOT of spin in progress now. I hope the PLA doesn't land in Kuala Lumpur and take over the country to teach them how to read clocks. No wonder people were throwing bottles at Malaysian airlines staff, poor guys!

Well, if the plane traveled across Malaysian airspace - and that too being tracked all the while - from east to west coast w/o RMAF intercepting the aircraft, then it means something VERY serious has happened. Remember, the report linked by me just above mentions that ATC lost contact with the plane exactly in a zone where there is likely to be 10-12 minutes of radio blind-spot. It was lost by Malaysian ATC and would be yet to be acquired by Vietnam ATC.

Was the plane hijacked at the opportune time using the 10-12 minute window and turned back? RMAF would have picked and intercepted the unidentified a/c but allowed it to transit through their airspace - however, they would have been ready to shoot it down had it turned towards Malaysian heartland.

And did RMAF try to do something to impede the journey of the plane - something like calculated firing at one of the engine to force the high-jackers to land the plane? And did this effort go terribly wrong with a/c going out of control or faith-fools decided do go for houris than land?

Lot of questions to be answered...

nawabs · Post by **nawabs** » 12 Mar 2014 18:49

If it was hijacked, there would have been sometime before the hijackers entered the cockpit during which the pilots could have entered the emergency code in the transponder. What possibly could have the hijackers done to disable the various comms inside the cockpit before entering? As for FBW problem I had linked to earlier, it was already known 4 months prior to the accident and scheduled to be corrected in all 777's. So if the hijackers gained access through deficiency, then they should have done what they planned to do. It could not have been a dry run. As for problem with the fuselag, there were cracks seen in other 777's. May be that caused some problem.

And as the defense minister said, If FAA/NTSB can positively confirm the unidentified plot on primary radar is MH370, the radar track will be made public on Thursday. Lets wait for that before suggesting that there was deliberate attempt to take the plane through path outside radar coverage.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 12 Mar 2014 18:51

So the aircraft kept going on its announced flight plan until JUST PAST Malaysian civilian radar range, then 1) turned sharply BEFORE it got into Vietnamese-observed airspace,
2) also maybe descended below radar,
3) turned off ALL communications AND transponder
4) ended up turning around 120degrees to track along Thail side of Thai-Malay border,
5) zipped along the edge of Malay military radar range (now claimed to be at 29500 feet, before it was "substantially lower altitude") .
6) Then went off into a region not covered by any radar, and disappeared entirely, with no transponder, no attempt to fly along populated sea-lanes, no other trace.

7) If all comms had failed, but airplane was flying, heck, all they had to do was come down, fly over some populated part and ask everyone to PLEASE TURN ON CELLPHONES and call your relatives. Or ask them to turn their Nokia GPS on to at least see where they were, if all GPS failed (see above about choice of flight path and you see that they had perfect GPS).

All unfortunate coincidence? As Dr. "goldfinger" ramana says, two events may be a coincidence, but three is definitely enemy action. Search eastern Sri Lanka, all of Aceh, maybe other parts in Indonesian jungle, or Andamans assuming there are parts where there is no military coverage.

This plane was taken over, that much seems pretty sure. Whether it still survives is a different question. If it was to be used as a missile after refueling, well, why has that not happened? Are they betting that the search will be called off before someone rats on them? If it crashed in vast ocean spaces, why, given that they had perfectly functioning GPS?

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 12 Mar 2014 18:57

This is a recent Airworthiness directive from Boeing. One that could lead to decompression. If this cracked there could be gradual decompression and loss of communication.

SUMMARY: We propose to adopt a new airworthiness directive (AD) for
certain The Boeing Company Model 777 airplanes. This proposed AD was
prompted by a report of cracking in the fuselage skin underneath the
satellite communication (SATCOM) antenna adapter. This proposed AD
would require repetitive inspections of the visible fuselage skin and
doubler if installed, for cracking, corrosion, and any indication of
contact of a certain fastener to a bonding jumper, and repair if
necessary. We are proposing this AD to detect and correct cracking and
corrosion in the fuselage skin, which could lead to rapid decompression
and loss of structural integrity of the airplane.

DATES: We must receive comments on this proposed AD by November 12,
2013.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-09 ... -23456.htm

Check this article for more info on above: http://mh370lost.tumblr.com/?og=1

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 12 Mar 2014 19:00

UlanBatori wrote:So the aircraft kept going on its announced flight plan until JUST PAST Malaysian civilian radar range, then 1) turned sharply BEFORE it got into Vietnamese-observed airspace,
2) also maybe descended below radar,
3) turned off ALL communications AND transponder
4) ended up turning around 120degrees to track along Thail side of Thai-Malay border,
5) zipped along the edge of Malay military radar range (now claimed to be at 29500 feet, before it was "substantially lower altitude") .
6) Then went off into a region not covered by any radar, and disappeared entirely, with no transponder, no attempt to fly along populated sea-lanes, no other trace.

7) If all comms had failed, but airplane was flying, heck, all they had to do was come down, fly over some populated part and ask everyone to PLEASE TURN ON CELLPHONES and call your relatives. Or ask them to turn their Nokia GPS on to at least see where they were, if all GPS failed (see above about choice of flight path and you see that they had perfect GPS).

All unfortunate coincidence? As Dr. "goldfinger" ramana says, two events may be a coincidence, but three is definitely enemy action. Search eastern Sri Lanka, all of Aceh, maybe other parts in Indonesian jungle, or Andamans assuming there are parts where there is no military coverage.

This plane was taken over, that much seems pretty sure. Whether it still survives is a different question. If it was to be used as a missile after refueling, well, why has that not happened? Are they betting that the search will be called off before someone rats on them? If it crashed in vast ocean spaces, why, given that they had perfectly functioning GPS?

Even if the GPS had failed, /knocked out/switched off, their onboard multiple inertial navigation systems/platforms would have kept a reasonably accurate picture of their track and path, subject to known and forecast able errors.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 12 Mar 2014 19:09

UlanBatori wrote:So the aircraft kept going on its announced flight plan until JUST PAST Malaysian civilian radar range, then 1) turned sharply BEFORE it got into Vietnamese-observed airspace,
2) also maybe descended below radar,
3) turned off ALL communications AND transponder
4) ended up turning around 120degrees to track along Thail side of Thai-Malay border,
5) zipped along the edge of Malay military radar range (now claimed to be at 29500 feet, before it was "substantially lower altitude") .
6) Then went off into a region not covered by any radar, and disappeared entirely, with no transponder, no attempt to fly along populated sea-lanes, no other trace.

7) If all comms had failed, but airplane was flying, heck, all they had to do was come down, fly over some populated part and ask everyone to PLEASE TURN ON CELLPHONES and call your relatives. Or ask them to turn their Nokia GPS on to at least see where they were, if all GPS failed (see above about choice of flight path and you see that they had perfect GPS).

All unfortunate coincidence? As Dr. "goldfinger" ramana says, two events may be a coincidence, but three is definitely enemy action. Search eastern Sri Lanka, all of Aceh, maybe other parts in Indonesian jungle, or Andamans assuming there are parts where there is no military coverage.

This plane was taken over, that much seems pretty sure. Whether it still survives is a different question. If it was to be used as a missile after refueling, well, why has that not happened? Are they betting that the search will be called off before someone rats on them? If it crashed in vast ocean spaces, why, given that they had perfectly functioning GPS?

This skirting and avoiding of radar coverage spaces is surely possible as such areas would have been mapped out world wide by various countries for covert operations.

Given the complete silence, both radio and transponder and the devious path flown, it seems deliberate and presupposes prior intelligence type inputs or points to extraneous person(s) in the cockpit controlling the crew.

nawabs · Post by **nawabs** » 12 Mar 2014 19:14

A question about accessibility and security of the MEC (Mechanical Equipment Center) on the 777.

First lets look at the MEC location - below and immediately behind the flight deck seems a perfect spot to have catastrophic consequences.

On 26 February 2007, a Boeing 777-222 operated by United Airlines, after pushback from the stand at London Heathrow Airport, experienced internal failure of an electrical component which subsequently led to under-floor fire. The aircraft returned to a stand where was attended by the Airfield Fire Service and the passengers were evacuated.

After engines start, about the time the engine driven Integrated Drive Generators (IDGs) would normally come on-line, the flight deck instrument displays flickered, the crew heard an abnormal noise and an EICAS message, amongst other related messages, indicated that the Right Main AC Bus had failed.

Some 40 seconds after the engines had stabilised at ground idle, the smoke detector in the Main Equipment Centre (MEC), located beneath the flight deck and forward vestibule, detected smoke. About two and a half minutes after the electrical failure, the crew became aware of a faint smell of electrical burning on the flight deck, following which the right engine was shut down. The crew were alerted by the ground handling crew that smoke was seen to be coming from the MEC vent and, a couple of minutes later, ATC also advised that smoke had been seen coming from the aircraft.

The investigation found:

The accident occurred during engine start after pushback from the stand. After the right generator came online an electrical failure occurred in the right main bus. The failure resulted in severe internal arcing and short circuits inside the two main power cont actors of the right main bus. The heat generated during the failure resulted in the contactor casings becoming compromised, causing molten metal droplets to fall down onto the insulation blankets below. The insulation blankets ignited and a fire spread underneath a floor panel to the opposite electrical panel (P205) (see MEC compartment drawing above), causing heat and fire damage to structure, cooling ducts and wiring.

The Report identifies the following causal factors:

*An internal failure of the Right Generator Circuit Breaker or Right Bus Tie Breaker contactor on the P200 power panel inside the Main Equipment Centre resulted in severe internal arcing and short-circuits which melted the contactor casings. The root cause of contactor failure could not be determined.

*The open base of the P200 power panel allowed molten metal droplets from the failed contactors to drop down onto the insulation blankets and ignite them.

*The aircraft’s electrical protection system was not designed to detect and rapidly remove power from a contactor suffering from severe internal arcing and short-circuits.

*The contactors had internal design features that probably contributed to the uncontained failures.

A failure (or even a breach) in the MEC causes fire. As the crew is unable to shut down and deplane, the incident escalates with smoke filling cabin/cockpit, followed quickly by electrical failure as we saw happen in this incident ...

As the fire continues uncontained, with the aircraft deaf and dumb - electrical; and as a result comms, transponder, ACARS etc all down, the fire breaches the aircraft hull - as it was well on its way to doing in this incident - followed by a rapid depressurization and resultant hypoxia.

member_28440 · Post by **member_28440** » 12 Mar 2014 19:18

Revealed: The two mystery Iranians travelling on stolen passports. Interpol say they do NOT believe plane was brought down by terrorism as men are revealed to be immigrants, 19 and 29

A Malaysian Police officer holds photos of two men believed to be the two passengers with stolen passports on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight.

Why is the image doctored ?

Look closely at the legs, both passengers have same legs.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 12 Mar 2014 19:21

So here is the latest estimate using our standard Predictor-Corrector Algorithm from UB Conspiracy Theories Inc., so well-proven in cricket matches in the distant past:

1. Hijackers were, to put it mildly, extremely well prepared. No comment on stolen passports etc, these guys were way smarter than I can imagine, so they must have had a fool-proof scheme, not one which would trigger a red flag if someone had decided to actually wake up and check with Inspecteur Clouseau d'Interpol.
2. Either pilots were already part of scheme (has anyone checked whether the actual pilots were the intended pilots? Watch "Thunderball" for how this is done..) or
3. At around the right time, cockpit door was opened (ever been on ***** airline? They don't use armored doors etc. or check ppls shoes, underwear, cavity-search).
4. Some form of coercion or deception was used to open door, so flight crew had no chance to reach for the hijack/ Mayday switch before they were at least incapacitated. They MAY have mumbled something into their mikes before passing out. (two pilot reports in the initial hours)
5. Trained pilots took over. They had at least a Nokia GPS (no Internet needed) cellphone to navigate.
6. Passengers were ordered not to move - or die immediately.
7. Systematic search for cellphones. Probably, anyone who did NOT produce a cellphone got beaten up.
8. Waited till edge of ATC region, then dived, turned off transponders, confirmed that no one was expressing concern, then turned to track across Thailand and AROUND Malay military radar.
9. Their comrades had driven a leaky boat in the ocean around there, causing an oil slick 9 miles long. They didn't bother to use exact same fuel etc because that entailed too much risk (why would anyone other than an airline or Air Force buy that brand of fuel?) because they expected the whole event to be over soon - or it didn't matter because the plane would have really disappeared.
10. Climbed back up to move faster. Inadvertently skimmed through Malay radar coverage and were spotted around 2:40AM. Dived back down when radar coverage showed on radar inside aircraft.
11. Flew over area known to be free of radar coverage, probably climbed to an altitude where passage over a ship would not arouse curiosity.
12. Landed. Maybe survived landing, maybe suffered damage that had to be repaired b4 takeoff again.
13. Passengers ordered out (I HOPE!!!!!). Sitting in some hall/ space covered with camouflage in a place where IR would not arouse curiosity (abandoned school? Tsunami-damaged bldg? Volcanic crater like in "U Only Live Twice"?
14. One or two surviving cellphones rang. Were immediately silenced, hopefully not along with their owners - these may have been phones that were in the collection bin, except but turned off. OK, so they now smashed/burned all phones. No more ring tones when Inspector Abdul checked.
15. Plane refuelled, repaired (maybe taking a long time) using a tanker boat brought in by sea to edge of airfield/controlled area.
16. Suicide "Missile" mission to take off. I HOPE they don't want the passengers or flt attendants around for that. Since 9/11/2001 ppl know what to expect on these flights, so they would fight to the death, at least for their families. Not easy to control inside a plane, much easier to keep them on the ground.

And the clock is ticking for No. 16. I hope the landing gear was damaged on landing badly enough to preclude any takeoff soon. Because the passengers' "use" to the terrorists expires as soon as the suicide flight takes off (certainty of massive retaliation regardless of the outcome of the 'missile' attack, and regardless of their treatment of the passengers).

Sorry to put this down here. I hope I can apply the "corrector" and delete this post soon when a better outcome is found.

Of course the Malay military must have realized this, hence the ambiguity about where they were really interested in searching. Tried to buy time with the Vietnam search, then the cat was out of bag, then they may have put out the "life raft" scam. The earlier "door" scam apparently sank, as intended, before it was retrieved as well.

They cannot afford to say that it is terrorism because that would be a death warrant for the passengers. No sense in badgering the poor guys. Doctored Iranian images, whatever, they are trying their best to confuse matters and give the passengers some hope of being saved.

*********************
Response to the one about GPS failure/inertial nav.

These days, if all else fails, all you have to do is to come down to say 10,000 feet, and cellphone coverage will be available. These are not so remote areas, farmers, hunters, all carry cellphones and cal use them. So at least 1 passenger would have been able to send out a distress call. If allowed or alive. The comm silence HAS to mean crash or terrorist hijacking.

There you go. Only the highest standards of rumors for us at UB CTs. CT has to fit all known and reasonably certain facts.

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 12 Mar 2014 19:29

CRamS wrote:Guys, I was watching cable noise network (CNN), the other day, and something NTSB expert mentioned caught my attention. He gave the example of 2 flights disappearing at sea in Hawaii a while back. This mystified him and his team. And after 2 years, they found that challenger was being deployed around the same time, and the satellite GPS was disabled for the launch, and this affected the 2 planes as the pilots got disoriented and got lost at sea. Any chance something like this could have happened. But even it did, the transponder would still have been working. So still a mystery.
.

Don't they still have INS to guide them in case of GPS failure?

nawabs · Post by **nawabs** » 12 Mar 2014 19:32

True. The 777 or any modern aircraft doesn't need GPS to navigate. If the GPS was disabled, the Inertial Reference Systems would continue to navigate with a very high degree of accuracy.

nawabs · Post by **nawabs** » 12 Mar 2014 19:35

UlanBatori wrote: 3. At around the right time, cockpit door was opened (ever been on ***** airline? They don't use armored doors etc. or check ppls shoes, underwear, cavity-search).

The cockpit doors will take large caliber pistol rounds without breaching and an axe would still take you a fair number of minutes to breach the door. Not to mention that the surveillance camera is watching and streaming that video to the cockpit. While that is going on.. pilots should be making a distress call or atleast feed the emergency code in the transponder.