Malaysia Airlines flight MH370-Updates and Discussion

I was wondering why searches were now being conducted WEST of Malaysia and while I was reading this article in the Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10687223/Malaysia-Airlines-MH370-plane-crash-live.html

I came across this:

The Malacca Strait runs all the way down the west side of Malaysia, quite close to Kuala Lumpur. There has been some speculation that if the plane suffered a problem with its computer systems and the pilots wanted to return to the airport, they could have been trying to track the west coast back down to KL. That is speculation, but what we do know is that if they are now focusing attention on the Malacca Strait, they must give some credence to the early report that a military radar had seen the plane turn around, or change course.

If the military saw and were tracking an unidentified aircraft in their airspace would it not be normal to dispatch a couple of fighter jets to investigate. They're not saying if they did or didn't. I find it hard to believe that the military would just sit watching a rogue aircraft and do nothing.

homerjay2005 wrote: »

some aviation experts suggesting that the plane was landed somewhere, according to Sky and also running the phones/social media stories.

another claim is one passenger is involved in a massive insurance claim and getting money for their family. this is just insane...the longer it goes on, the more crazy it gets.

It would be amazing if there were people still alive from it somewhere. That would make some movie script though.

homerjay2005 wrote: »

some aviation experts suggesting that the plane was landed somewhere, according to Sky and also running the phones/social media stories.

another claim is one passenger is involved in a massive insurance claim and getting money for their family. this is just insane...the longer it goes on, the more crazy it gets.




probably basing this off no distress or signals with the plane. is it possible that the pilot was able to disengage radar and all communications and make it untraceable?

By turning off the transponder the plane and all its information disappears from secondary radar, however it would be still visible on primary via a blip - thats what disturbs me, the only way would be not on primary is usually if its outside of radar which usually means it has crashed. The pilot could stop communications by incapacitating the other crew member and turning off both radios - ACARS data would still show up though to MAS showing the continuing status of the aircraft, weirdly it stopped the same time it disappeared though ACARS can be switched off.

Re the 2 stolen passport holders now reasonably assumed to be Iranians, economic migrants looking to get in to Europe, from the photos shown, if genuine, neither looked remotely like Balotelli.

If this was some kind of military accident, (stray missile, mid-air collision etc) it might explain the conflicting and confusing information, however that doesn't mean we should discount basic human incompetence, bureaucracy and inexperience in the face of an unprecedented situation.
Malaysia, while being a fairly developed (2nd world) country with quite a bit of high tech industry, is not unlike Ireland in that it probably punches above its weight in many areas, but it wouldn't have the mighty military/navy SAR resources of China who are putting pressure on it. Outside the main cities, are huge areas of jungle, agricultural plantations and fairly basic village life.

Re the Chinese messenger accounts - chances are they are still logged in somewhere else, or cloned, perhaps on one of the 100,000+ Chinese gov desktops monitoring all Chinese communication.
Whatsapp (biggest) employs 55, Chinese equivalent employs 1000s+

zetalambda wrote: »

Anyone think they may have been sucked into one of those black hole thingy's?

Yes pixies.
But they believe anything.

Storm 10 wrote: »

If passengers were allowed to use mobile phones on aircraft we would know what happened, someone would have tried to phone home like the passengers on the 9/11 jet that went down while some of them were trying to overpower the hijackers, some people called their relatives on their mobiles I think there was some recordings of their calls..

If it was catastrophic failure or a bomb that exploded (prematurely or other) they wouldn't have had a chance to take their mobiles out of their pockets.

Storm 10 wrote: »

If passengers were allowed to use mobile phones on aircraft we would know what happened, someone would have tried to phone home like the passengers on the 9/11 jet that went down while some of them were trying to overpower the hijackers, some people called their relatives on their mobiles I think there was some recordings of their calls..

At 35,000 ft I'd doubt your fone would work, that's before the fact it's in the middle of the sea.

Jack1985 wrote: »

Is the above a copy of the avherald?

Yes it is

its getting more like a episode of lost everyday

Unless they release the ACARS data like with Air France we wont know.
If the military had picked up a blip on primary radar it begs the question why wasnt a jet scrambled to intercept it and investigate it. The authorities may not come out of this too well.

cml387 wrote: »

ACARS does report position information, and indeed part of the last messages from the Air France aircraft were accurate position reports.

Jack1985 wrote: »

Yikes apologies you are fully correct.

The only thing is though, that the last position report remains its off-radar time position.

No.

You're both right, and wrong. ACARS can report position information, but that doesn't mean that it does. It is up to the airline to decide how they actually use ACARS.

Some operators use it to receive metrics such as engine performance transmitted at regular intervals. Others might only have it set to automatically send data on push-off, take-off, and landing, as well as perhaps sending a maintenance update 30 minutes before arrival.

Crew can also use it to send messages to their airline, for example status updates regarding delays, medical issues, or checking what hotel they are booked into, or request and receive flightpath/weather data.

AFAIK the 777s are capable of transmitting ACARS data over satellite as well as VHF, but again this might be up to the operator, MA might only use VHF.

So depending on what events unfolded onboard MH370, it's possible the lack of ACARS transmissions isn't surprising. It could just be a side-effect of disruption to the VHF comms, and that they didn't have satellite capability. Even if they did, and only had trouble with VHF it's possible that in trying to resolve the VHF problems they left the ACARS in a state unable to use the satellite channel.

What's most important to remember is that sometimes the problem the crew think they are dealing with isn't the actual problem. A review of air-accident history will through up plenty of cases where the crew decided something wasn't working when it actually was, and vice versa.

One reasonable theory that I've seen is that a serious incident left the pilots with a damaged plane and unable to communicate and navigate properly. Reviewing possible landing sites they could have decided KUL was the best option as it has procedures for landing without comms. Visual navigation routes could have taken it into the straits of malacca intending to follow a course SE toward KUL. Whatever crippled the plane in the first place then led to it's total loss.