This latest revelation makes me wonder if something happened similar to the Helios Flight 522 event. Something catastrophic happened that depressurized the cabin and the pilots lost consciousness while trying to change course. The plane flew on autopilot to the west until it ran out of fuel and crashed in the ocean.
Unless it cost them a chance to find survivors, does anyone really care?
A lot of resources have been expended. A lot of conspiracy theories have been and will be constructed no that apparently the Malaysian Air Force has been sitting silent with this information.
And if there was anyone that might have survived for a few hours that are now dead, I would say it is a big deal. A VERY BIG DEAL.
This is the statement that prompted me to ask “who cares.” I know it cost some money and time. Why do I care? It’s a few million dollars out of the treasury of several countries, at least two of which have huge economies.
Have people not noticed this yet? Every time there’s a big news story, conspiracy theories emerge on the web almost within hours. It’s a constant, and while it’s very dumb, it’s not worth worrying about.
I said exactly that, but thank you for repeating me with bolding and caps lock. It makes my ideas look snazzier. But that’s kind of a limited scenario. If the plane crashed in a remote jungle or in the ocean, there’s no guarantee anybody could’ve gotten there in time to save anyone.
It looks like at least someone thought to start looking over there at least 2 days ago.
If this is what happened how far (south) west would Flight 370 have gone? Kuala Lumpur to Beijingis about 2,700 miles, with a near 6 hour flight time. The last contact time was 2 hours after take off so the plane should still have had 4 hours or so of fuel left.
Using the heading on this map the plane could have almost made it to the Maldivesbefore the fuel ran out.
But that would require crossing Sumatra without being picked up by the Indonesian ATC or air force radars. After Sumatra there’s a whole lot of empty ocean on that heading.
And thought it was tracked west, it seems it must have not have gone down in the Straits of Malacca. That is a heavily trafficked sea lane. Surely ships would have noticed a plane going down in the area.
This is sounding more like a hijacking to me and any splash/crash area may be well out into the Indian Ocean.
I am confident that when the aliens are finished with their study, the plane will again appear on the radar.
The plane may have gone down in the middle of the night, so it is possible for its crash to be missed even in the heavily-trafficked Malacca Straits.
Nitpick: Hong Kong is East Asia, not Southeast Asia.
Been busy these past couple of days and not checked in. Looks now like the fake-passport angle is turning into a red herring. That’s not surprising since this whole area is awash in fake and stolen passports. Now I see it looks like it may actually have turned sharply and crossed the peninsula without being noticed after all? How do things like that happen? But they’re saying the plane’s transponders were simply not working for whatever reason.
In Australia they’re reporting the co-pilot had invited two women into the cockpit on a flight two years ago. Maybe this whole disappearance is the result of some bizarre sex experiment?
If it was hijacked by one of the pilots there may not be a “crash/splash” point, it might have landed safely.
Of course, then there’s the problem of what to do with several hundred people who happened to be along for the ride…
Is my understanding correct that ATC radar works by recieving a signal from rather than bouncing one off the plane like military radar?
At this point, if all the transponders went off, and the plane just turned and went 100 miles in the other direction, I’m having a hard time coming up with a plausable explanation that doesn’t involve a hijacking.
That’s my understanding as well.
ATC radar is secondary radar that receives an active signal sent from the plane.
Military radar is primary radar that actively pings to locate planes in the sky, whether sending a signal or not.
And as a side note, here’s something on our local Iranian-headed stolen-passport ring.
You can’t possibly be serious. Multiple nations and private enterprises have burned up untold tons of fuel on a wild goose chase.
I’m pretty sure they’re sitting in a secret jungle location, listening to their cellphones ring.
ATC Uses radar that interacts with aircraft that recognize the ping and responds with an assigned number and altitude information. If it’s really busy airspace the pilot can, upon request, hit a button that makes the plane stand out to the controller.
It’s not unusual for a transponder to fail. Unless the traffic controller calls and lets them know they aren’t receiving the transponder info the crew will not know. The farther away from radar, the harder it is to judge altitude. A plane just becomes an unidentified blip.
There’s one here, but I’m not sure how likely it is:
**"Anthony Roman, a trained pilot and consultant, said that a fast-moving fire might have moved through the cockpit and rendered everything, including the crew, effectively powerless to do much more than turn the plane around.
“‘Fires are insidious,’ Roman told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. ‘They can happen quickly and knock out multiple systems quickly.’”**
This is sounding more and more like a non-mechanical problem to me and perhaps pilot suicide. There are precedents for that, including SilkAir Flight 185 in 1987, EgyptAir Flight 990 in 1999, and LAM Mozambique Airlines in November 2013.
And this is far from the first aircraft that has ever disappeared over land or sea, and I can’t see our judiciary still being anal over such a technicality, if indeed it ever was. I have a feeling adjudication favoring relatives of people who disappeared while flying took place early in the age of flight, make it the 1920s. Maybe one of the forum legal eagles can help us out on that point.