It can’t be terrorism unless some group claims responsibility. Otherwise, what’s the point? It could have been a lone wolf who left a note behind somewhere, I suppose.
Flight radar 24 has it disappearing further out over the ocean. It’s worth remembering that apps like flightaware and flightradar24 are reliant on data uploaded by enthusiasts and while they are often very accurate they can also be wrong or incomplete and shouldn’t be used as a primary source of information. Case in point, flightaware didn’t track this flight for as long as flightradar24 did, it follows then that flightradar24 itself may not have tracked the flight to its conclusion either.
Air France hit the water fully intact, and there were not hundreds of floating objects on the surface, just a few.
A Philippine newspaper quotes the Vietnamese authorities:
(Note : Ca Mau is actually farther from the Cambodian border than HCM City. It’s the bit of Vietnam sticking far south pointing right at Malaysia)
On the same tack a report from a New Zealand paper:
And yes, that does not look like two hours+ worth of flying
A straight Great Circle route would cross back over land west of Ca Mau, overfly Cambodia and southern Laos, cross Vietnam again north of Hue, go back overwater across the Gulf of Tonkin and cross the Chinese coast a bit east of the Vietnamese border.
Yes, but it took them about two years, didn’t it?
At least one of the oil slicks was identified by a Vietnamese Air Force pilot as being “consistent with they type of slick you would expect from a crashed plane,” whatever that means. But I would expect such professionals to know what that would look like.
Doesn’t matter since the plane never made it that far. Vietnam says it never entered its air space. The oil slicks are about where the East China Sea meets the Gulf of Thailand, between Malaysia and Vietnam.
Didn’t that Air India flight that blew up over the ocean decades ago similarly go unclaimed? IIRC, it was something like 20 years before the perps were identified.
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It was the worst combination of situations. First, they couldn’t find it, then they couldn’t retrieve it.
And of course, I meant the South China Sea.
Or some kids randomly flipping switches in the cockpit.
Well, 1 of 2 things happened. Either a 777 went down in deep water or it landed somewhere else. Its a long shot to say that anyone wants a used 777 for some nefarious purpose. My guess is a sea landing intact & it submerged quickly w/o survivors launching a raft.
BBC just interviewed an expert who said while the pilots may have been prevented from sending out a signal, the plane is sending out signals all the time, and the fact that it just disappeared from the sky without sending out a signal that something was wrong indicates something sudden and catastrophic.
She also mentioned there was damage to the plane in 2012, something about a wing – I didn’t catch all of that, but she’s saying there’s starting to be speculation that this could have been a factor. First I’ve heard about that.
Myself, I’m wondering if the Dharma Initiative might be operating on some island nearby.
Unlikely. Successful landings at sea are as rare as they come – one in a million (Sullberger).
In 2012 the tip of the wing was damaged in a minor collision while maneuvering on the ground. While I don’t recommend bashing up airplane wings, the picture I saw on the news of the damage makes me think it was minor as these things go. I mean, it was just the wingtip - damaging that will reduce the efficiency of the wing a bit but seriously, even if that sort of thing had occurred while in flight I don’t see it resulting in a sudden catastrophe of this sort. In fact, I’d expect the airplane would fly just find to it’s destination. The damage was just the wing tip, not any of the control surfaces or critical areas.
The transponder can be turned off manually (it was for all four flights on 9/11).
And the outcome of Sully’s landing would have been quite different if he was in the middle of an ocean, especially if he hadn’t been able to radio “We’ll be in the Hudson”. He even forgot to hit the ditch switch, and the plane began to sink right away.
At this point, they’re still trying to think of absolutely anything that could have gone wrong.
Sully didn’t land at Sea. He landed on a nice smooth river with no waves to catch an engine cowling and drag a wing into the water.
If they had control of the plane down to the water they would likely have had the ability to communicate either directly by radio or through ACARS. Malaysian Airlines should have a fairly good idea when ACARS communication stopped and what was recorded just prior to that.
It’s just been announced the FBI is sending a team to help investigate due to the Americans who were on board.
The plot thickens. Now BBC is reporting that in addition to the two passengers traveling on stolen passports, Malaysian authorities are investigating the identities of two other passengers, although it’s not known if these other two were also traveling on stolen passports. However, this flight was a code share with China Southern Airlines, and all four passengers now under scrutiny bought their tickets through China Southern.
I have an inkling that airport security is about to be tightened quite a bit worldwide. Which is okay with me.
What’s the point of terrorism if you don’t tie it to your cause?