Did it have the range to cross the Indian Ocean to Africa? Not according to the reports I have seen.
It doesn’t look like it had enough fuel to get to the rogue nations of the Middle East or Eastern Asia (N Korea) either.
I have been getting most of my news from CNN. Apparently the main focus of searching is going west to the Indian Ocean. I wonder why there is little to no speculation that the plane could have gone east towards the Philippines
as a non-aviation guy, I found this BBC diagram helpful in understanding how planes are tracked:
The oil rig is sort of near the southwest extremity of the Spratly island chain. Last month China was reported to be panning to declare another air defence identification zone over the Spratly islands.. Maybe an overzealous air-defence unit shot down the transponder-less plane?
Or more likely the worker saw a meteor.
There is a rumour that radar on the Malay Peninsula picked up an unidentified plane that could have been the missing airliner. If so, that points to a westward turn. There is no similar rumour (and really, it’s disgraceful that this is all just rumour) of a radar blip towards the east.
At this stage in the game, for all we know, the worker had one too many tokes.
So I did some experiments yesterday. I put my phone on airplane mode in order to understand the senario a bit better and lost all communications. No one could find me for quite some time.
I won’t be impressed until you’ve been lost without a trace for 5+ days.
I just Googled “malaysian air 370” and it gave me the next scheduled flight for MH370, this Saturday.
Malaysia Air isn’t really having another flight using that same number, is it?
This link might not work:
https://www.google.com/search?q=malaysia+air+370&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari#hl=en&q=malaysian+air+370
If the plane was headed north, then turned west and flew for a number of hours, how is the press not calling it a probable hijacking?
I’m going to call:
Everybody gives up, goes home. In 20 - 30 years a farmer/fisherman/hiker finds an odd bit of something, which is subsequently (and with great effort) linked to the “doomed airplane”.
Who was the starlet on a morale building/bond selling tour (with others) on a plane which ran into a mountain - and was discover 30-60 years later, despite an extensive search at the time?
Or Steve Fossett? I couldn’t have picked a better (factory built) plane to conceal - fabric over steel tube, aluminum wing. Crumple it up* and it fits a small van. Way to go, Steve! Hope you’re enjoying your new life!
Because no one knows why it changed course. There just isn’t enough evidence to make that call. The press will call it a probable hijacking if/when someone involved with the investigation calls it a probable hijacking.
It’s weird because normally the press wants to reveal as much information as possible, but I get the feeling there’s things we aren’t being told. It almost feels like to me there is some stuff known we aren’t being told that is materially important. For one, Malaysia Airlines appears to be very cagey. For two, unnamed U.S. officials have apparently speculated anonymously to American reporters (at respected sources like the Wall Street Journal that wouldn’t just make something up) that they believe the plane flew for hours after the transponder went off line and are now speculating that the plane may have been taken for “unknown reasons.” I know none of this is new…it just feels like to me maybe Malaysian investigators are being so incompetent that the American officials don’t want to embarrass them by publicly contradicting them, or maybe there’s some reason to think it really is terrorism and American officials don’t want to reveal their hand for some reason.
The most recent WSJ article indicates that there was indeed continuous satellite contact with the plane for hours after its transponder went offline, and that the last data they received through that system indicated the plane was at a normal altitude (which would again imply that it wasn’t turned off because the plane flew into the ocean and was destroyed.) I know not many pay to get through the WSJ paywall, but this article is the one I’m talking about. The most relevant passage to me:
The article is intentionally vague on who they are talking about, noting their source as “people briefed on the investigation.” It doesn’t even mention if these people are American officials or officials from some other country, journalists etc. If this satellite data actually contained location information as the WSJ is reporting I can only presume it is what is informing the searchers right now (certainly the crews actually searching would not be kept ignorant of location data that for some reason the powers that be are declining to share with us.)
The civilian radars would have coverage over land and that’s what I’m referring too. The military radar signals may have ventured farther out over the ocean but if the airplane turned back over land it would be covered by overlapping civilian radar sites. here’s a list of airports in Malaysia.
As far as what the operator wants to look at that shouldn’t matter if tapes were reviewed. Raw data would have shown the same target the military units showed if the plane came back over land. Unless they’re completely incompetent there would be a number of radar sites that recorded the event and could be matched to a timeline.
The only possible explanations I see are:
Problem: If you’re killing yourself why try to mask the plane’s course and why all the delay? Just fly it into the ocean, end of suicide.
Problem: Terrorists don’t like to do big flashy attacks and receive no credit at all, or worse yet leave it unknown as to whether an attack even happened.
Possible explanation: It was intended to be a 9/11 style attack, the hijacker pilots fucked up and couldn’t properly navigate and thus the terror group behind it is staying quiet as they have no reason to brag about a failed attack. But even if it failed to hit its primary target any attack with hundreds of dead air passengers would still be a feather in the cap of any terror group pulling it off so even if they fucked up and failed to hit their intended target that seems unlikely to stop them from wanting to take credit.
Problem: It just seems goofy, I’m not sure how you’d offload it and you’re also talking about murdering 200+ people to steal something. Not saying it’s not something some people would be willing to do, but if you’re willing to engage in that kind of barbarism I’d think there may be easier/more sure fire theft targets out there. I guess, I dunno.
If this was the plan I doubt it succeeded, if they were trying to cross the Indian Ocean they didn’t have enough fuel and I don’t know a lot of countries outside of Africa where this plane could have landed and had any hope of not being found out.
This is what is being speculated by unnamed American officials.
Problem: I’m curious as to what the other purposes would be. I’d guess using it as a large missile to fly it into something, but as 9/11 shows it makes more sense to just capture a plane already reasonably close to your targets versus capturing a plane somewhere far away, then flying it secretly to some other place and then later refueling it / getting it ready and then using it in an attack. It’s one thing to train some guys to fly a plane, this proposed use of it would also need trained maintenance guys, a place to refuel a plane of this size and people who know all the stuff you’re supposed to do to land a plane that’s running on fumes and then get it ready to go again. Maybe that’s not as hard as it sounds, since I’ve never been a pilot or an airline mechanic / service crew person I have no idea. But it does seem like it’d be difficult to conceal, especially in any country this plane could have easily flown to…if they planned on going to Africa I’d have thought any group sophisticated enough to have people trained in flying these kinds of jets would also be able to tell / would know the plane lacked the fuel to get there.
Because there are alternate explanations for the airplane turning/turning back after a severe fault in a particular system.
One explanation I’ve heard (pure speculation from a local pilot friend) was that the airplane depressurized and a pilot attempted to turn back to the departure airport but only got partway through the procedure before passing out. Now, while that does fit the known facts there’s no way, at this point, to know if that’s what happened.
Actually, a Decathalon is fabric over a largely wooden wing. The main spar is wood. There’s actually very little metal in that airplane, most of it serving as a frame for the fuselage.
That’s an interesting theory but the fact that they found his remains on the mountainside awhile back invalidates it.
Actually, the airplane burned.
If they have an indication that systems were switched off (versus in failure mode) then that’s a human factor event.
It isn’t the reporters that are holding back information. Even the tight-assed reporters of the BBC have been expressing their frustration over not being able to get a straight story.
I’m running out of news sites I can even access without having to pay up & subscribe. I went to BBC a little bit ago and couldn’t access BBC at all.
I may have to get all my news from the Dope!
On an offshore rig? It would be much more likely he was the Son of God himself.
I just got back from search and rescue training.
So I will ramble on.
If I remember correctly you divide up a seach into several categories. And the person you are searching for is described up with as much detail as possible.
Including last known location. The actual last spot the person was definatly seen and last suspected location like a car at a trailhead.
As for the person, certain types of people tend to do certain things depending on age and occupations and such. It will better help focus resources. And most people tend to do simalar things such as go down hill or follow a path or stream.
As for search areas it is divided up into probable areas and then the greater possible areas. Depending on known last location, likely direction and how much time has passed.
Someone on foot headed a certain direction gets lost a few days later a search party is headed out the most likely chance is that they are only a few miles away. But a person could walk much further and unlikly but possibly in any direction. Even the oppsite direction of the trailhead. Multiply walking speed by time and this is theoretical search area. But wait there is still two more areas. The often forgotten doughnut hole. The area right were they were last seen or know to be. Both different sites usually. Many have been found almost underfoot at a base camp of a sarch party days later.
Then there is the ROW area. Described to us as the Rest of the World. This area is just as stated. Someone gets picked up and driven somewere and has not or cant check back in. And add to that the potential for a hard to find despondant. Despondants do not follow normal lost person behavior but do follow normal despondant behavior. Often found hiding in bushes and up in trees were lost people do not go. Or buying train or plane tickets.
As for flight 370 all the resources seem to be focused on the probable locations. With all sorts of conflicting last sights and probaabal last locations.Now, I now I am not the only person armed with this knowledge and I am not even that particularly knowledgeable in the field but given the worlds resources continue to come up dry I am gonna speculate we are not looking hard enough in the possible seach areas and the rest of the world.
Draw a circle around the area the plane had potential to fly. It should be there (possible) but could have landed and refueld of been dismantled and driven elsewere (ROW).
Also despondant flight crew or intellegent hijack or some other unknown. Hell, it could be in San Fancisco.
With all the tracking devices and worlds attention at this point it sure seems like and abduction or despondant person if I am gonna look a it like a missing person case. The fact that the pilot is a veteran with nearly 20k hours make me think he is more likly able to aviod detection. Even if there was an intellegent hijacker that suggested to the pilot to avoid detection the pilot with his experince could have sent an alert. If the potential hijacker took over controls I feel an alert would still have been made. We also have the potential that the pilot we think was in the cockpit was never really there. It could have been hijacked before take off. Clever disguise or look alikes.
Anyhow this plane is not following normal lost plane or person behavior. It is following despondant and hijacked or abducted behavior. This will change the search area dramtically. Most likely to the ROW or theoretical areas.
My less than amature best guess. The plane purposefully diverted flight plans, avoided detection and crashed into the sea outside of the current heavily focused search area.
My hope. It is in a remote area and hijack negotiations are in progress.