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Malaysia Airlines Flight Goes Missing En Route to China - Flight MH370

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  • Originally posted by Exadios View Post
    As I understand it the change in altitude occurred after the transponder was turned off. Most of the distress signals, other than voice over VHF, are transmitted via the transponder.

    The height gain information come only from the military radar track - not from the ADS-B or Mode S.
    Good point. But of course it begs the question why/who turned the transponder off? A change in altitude after the transponder turned off, would that suggest the pilot or co-pilot did it? Or maybe a more far-fetched idea is that they were coerced by hijackers to do it at gun/knife/bomb/weapon point, so they did so, but maybe once the hijackers tried to take control, they fought back?

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    • Originally posted by Speed Daemon View Post
      No. Back when the Concorde and were flying at altitudes up to 60,000' and 85,000 feet respectively, civilian air traffic control radar tracked those planes in commercial airspace.

      Chances are that the report of going to 45,000' is as fallacious as many of the other false reports about this flight. I wouldn't read anything into it at this point.
      That's a good point. Certainly nobody has released any actual data about the military track at all. I am still confused why the Malaysian Airforce was the only agency to have a primary track of the aircraft.

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      • Originally posted by Speed Daemon View Post
        Hijacking a spaceship is James Bond. Hijacking an airplane is fairly common. Here in the US it became almost commonplace for people to hijack planes to Cuba in the 1960s. There were a fair number of hijackings from Cuba to the US as well. Increased security has made it harder, but far from impossible.
        Last edited by speedbird1960; 2014-03-17, 07:37. Reason: Quotation fixed.

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        • Originally posted by Speed Daemon View Post
          The thing is that there are two pilots...and a cabin crew...and passengers. While it's possible for one pilot to crash the plane quickly when the other one is in the lavatory, it's quite a different thing to try to lock the second pilot out of the cockpit and think that he'll just sit there and do nothing for all those hours. IMO it's far more believable that someone took command of the plane by force or threat of force than to think that hundreds of people also waited to die for 8 hours. That both pilots coincidentally became suicidal at the same time is even more improbable. That means that someone outside the cockpit must have known something was wrong long before the flight ended.
          I agree. I think probably the pilot along with some passengers were involved in the hijacking of the plane. As the co-pilot and pilot were randomly chosen to fly together for this flight, it's unlikely that both of them are involved and I can't really see just the captain acting alone and managing to hijack and fly the plane for 7 hours+ without any attempt by passengers and crew to retake the plane. Although far-fetched, the likely scenario is the plane has landed, the passengers are being kept somewhere and the intention of the hijackers is to either sell the plane to a terrorist organization or if they are a terrorist organization use it in a 9/11 style attack. A ransom at some point will be demanded for the safe return of the passengers.

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          • Originally posted by Exadios View Post
            That's a good point. Certainly nobody has released any actual data about the military track at all. I am still confused why the Malaysian Airforce was the only agency to have a primary track of the aircraft.
            Well, according to one news report the Vietnamese authorities said that they contacted the Malaysian authorities to ask why their plane was turning back. So they must have been tracking the plane...at least according to that news report.

            The more I read, the more of a mess this whole thing looks like at the governmental level. Depending on which news report I read, Malaysia, Vietnam and even China claim to have tracking data. It looks to me like the bulk of this "news" is coming from government officials who are far more interested in their own personal news exposure than getting the facts straight!

            It seems that the Malaysian government has something to hide. Exactly what is not clear.

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            • Originally posted by Speed Daemon View Post
              Well, according to one news report the Vietnamese authorities said that they contacted the Malaysian authorities to ask why their plane was turning back. So they must have been tracking the plane...at least according to that news report.

              The more I read, the more of a mess this whole thing looks like at the governmental level. Depending on which news report I read, Malaysia, Vietnam and even China claim to have tracking data. It looks to me like the bulk of this "news" is coming from government officials who are far more interested in their own personal news exposure than getting the facts straight!

              It seems that the Malaysian government has something to hide. Exactly what is not clear.
              Yeah apparently the Malaysians were aware the plane had turned around after 40mins of flight yet still kept on searching the South China sea knowing full well they weren't going to find anything... bizarre..

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              • Originally posted by Speed Daemon View Post
                Well, according to one news report the Vietnamese authorities said that they contacted the Malaysian authorities to ask why their plane was turning back. So they must have been tracking the plane...at least according to that news report.

                The more I read, the more of a mess this whole thing looks like at the governmental level. Depending on which news report I read, Malaysia, Vietnam and even China claim to have tracking data. It looks to me like the bulk of this "news" is coming from government officials who are far more interested in their own personal news exposure than getting the facts straight!

                It seems that the Malaysian government has something to hide. Exactly what is not clear.

                I was not aware of the Vietnamese report. Interesting.

                In a post 9/11 world what the Malaysian air force thought they were doing by tracking an unidentified aircraft heading for land I cannot say. Is suspect they only located it after they plated their data back.

                The Malaysian government is not a particularly democratic institution. They are used to operating with very little accountability. I think that they are just doing what they are out of habit.
                Last edited by Exadios; 2014-03-17, 06:48.

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                • Please correct me if i am wrong. It was a regular scheduled flight ( daily schedule) and the time of departure should have been informed to the Vietnamese ATC authorities. My question is why did not the vietnam ATC authorities raised their concerns when there was a delay in flight reporting on their air space. Had they alerted the Malaysian authorities? If so What was Malaysian reactions?

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                  • Originally posted by zed View Post
                    I agree. I think probably the pilot along with some passengers were involved in the hijacking of the plane. As the co-pilot and pilot were randomly chosen to fly together for this flight, it's unlikely that both of them are involved and I can't really see just the captain acting alone and managing to hijack and fly the plane for 7 hours+ without any attempt by passengers and crew to retake the plane.
                    I'm not sure if any of the flight crew were the actual hijackers, although reports of lax cockpit security procedures suggests that they may have made it easy for a passenger to go down to the flight deck with the crew's full permission, and then attack them, make a bomb threat or something else that would take control out of the pilots' hands. All things considered, that seems most plausible right now.

                    Although far-fetched, the likely scenario is the plane has landed, the passengers are being kept somewhere and the intention of the hijackers is to either sell the plane to a terrorist organization or if they are a terrorist organization use it in a 9/11 style attack. A ransom at some point will be demanded for the safe return of the passengers.
                    I really doubt the terrorist angle. If a terrorist organization wanted a large plane, I'm sure they could find an easier way. Besides, the "fly an airplane into a building" thing lacks the element of surprise these days.

                    It would be too hard to fence a stolen 777, and even the parts could be tracked, so I doubt that theft of the airframe was the motive. That means that some thing or someone aboard the plane was the target. The motive could include kidnapping, murder, theft of personal property or cargo. And unless the plan is murder-suicide (and if that were the case, why not crash into the ocean right away) then there must be a place to land. Although the plan may have been to land safely and get away, it's possible that something went wrong and the plane crashed on landing.

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                    • Originally posted by zed View Post
                      Yeah apparently the Malaysians were aware the plane had turned around after 40mins of flight yet still kept on searching the South China sea knowing full well they weren't going to find anything... bizarre..
                      Yep, it's like they were keeping other search parties out of Malaysian waters long enough to cover something up.

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                      • Originally posted by Exadios View Post
                        I was not aware of the Vietnamese report. Interesting.
                        Take it with a grain of salt; it came from a news report, not from the Vietnamese government itself. Way too many "facts" in this case can't be tracked back to any responsible government official or independent expert.


                        In a post 9/11 world what the Malaysian air force thought they were doing by tracking an unidentified aircraft heading for land I cannot say. Is suspect they only located it after they plated their data back.
                        I think that the post 9-11 measures that a 97.4% Muslim nation might would differ substantially from what a western nation would take. IJS

                        When it comes to the elevation numbers, either they were totally lying about them, or they were paying unusual attention to the plane. The only type of ground-based radar that can show elevation is the kind that must be aimed first. So they wouldn't just happen to find the data on playback; they would have had to have been watching in real time that night.

                        The only other kind of radar that might get altitude data out at sea is the fire control radar on something like a fighter plane. Sending a fighter plane out after their national airline right before it disappeared looks mighty suspicious all by itself. Sending a fighter plane out and then turning on its weapons systems is practically a smoking gun! Could it be that MH370 didn't actually disappear, but was either forced to return to Malaysia (presumably to a military airfield) or even shot down?


                        The Malaysian government is not a particularly democratic institution. They are used to operating with very little accountability. I think that they are just doing what they are out of habit.
                        I have no doubt about that! The question is which of their old habits they were indulging: Secrecy? Incompetence? Something more sinister?

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                        • I don't know, the more I look at it, the more I'm convinced this must have been a question of hacking -- perhaps even the equipment was tampered with to convince the pilots they needed to make course changes that they didn't, and were communicating with imposters - they might not have even realized anthing was amiss until they were long off course. The more that comes out about the pilots, the less likely it seems to me they were directly involved - when you watch that guys DIY videos, he seems like someone who is conscious of the world around him - you can never tell, but my gut says he wouldn't do anything to harm that many people. I've seen the stuff that he was involved in the opposition party, but he doesn't seem to have been an extremist.

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                          • Originally posted by Speed Daemon View Post
                            Take it with a grain of salt; it came from a news report, not from the Vietnamese government itself. Way too many "facts" in this case can't be tracked back to any responsible government official or independent expert.



                            I think that the post 9-11 measures that a 97.4% Muslim nation might would differ substantially from what a western nation would take. IJS

                            When it comes to the elevation numbers, either they were totally lying about them, or they were paying unusual attention to the plane. The only type of ground-based radar that can show elevation is the kind that must be aimed first. So they wouldn't just happen to find the data on playback; they would have had to have been watching in real time that night.

                            The only other kind of radar that might get altitude data out at sea is the fire control radar on something like a fighter plane. Sending a fighter plane out after their national airline right before it disappeared looks mighty suspicious all by itself. Sending a fighter plane out and then turning on its weapons systems is practically a smoking gun! Could it be that MH370 didn't actually disappear, but was either forced to return to Malaysia (presumably to a military airfield) or even shot down?



                            I have no doubt about that! The question is which of their old habits they were indulging: Secrecy? Incompetence? Something more sinister?
                            I don't think any nation can allow unidentified aircraft to wander around in their airspace at 500 knots.

                            It is not true that radar needs to be aimed. All modern military radar is implemented using a phased array

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                            • Originally posted by Speed Daemon View Post
                              I'm not sure if any of the flight crew were the actual hijackers
                              Yeah it could be the press are making a big deal about the pilots political beliefs, the fact he had a simulator at home etc etc But then you would have thought he could have sent a hidden message with his last report to ATC to indicate they were hijacked without actually saying so. Because at the time of the last transmission, the transponder had already been disabled and the plan to hijack the plan already in action.

                              Originally posted by Speed Daemon View Post
                              I really doubt the terrorist angle. If a terrorist organization wanted a large plane, I'm sure they could find an easier way. Besides, the "fly an airplane into a building" thing lacks the element of surprise these days.
                              I also think there would be easier ways of stealing a large airliner, I'm just struggling to think of any other sound reason though. Nothing really seems to make sense. Whatever happened, it seems to have been relatively well planned and thought out. Which brings me back to the terrorist theory. Essentially they have a very large flyable bomb and whilst it may be hard to get close to viable targets in the US, there are other countries whose defenses are less capable that they could easily target.

                              I just can't believe that somewhere the plane has landed, 250 passengers successfully offloaded and kept as hostages and no-one has seen or heard a thing.. It just seems too incredible.

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                              • Has any authority come out and detailed why the plane rose to 45'000 feet?

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