Let’s say the one suicidal pilot theory is correct. Wouldn’t the plane have shown up as rapidly descending on radar? One sweep it’s there, the next sweep it’s gone. I can’t square that with a deliberate crash scenario.
Is there any maneuver that a pilot could perform that would result the aircraft breaking up into pieces that wouldn’t reflect a significant radar signature?
A deliberate crash would take minutes even if the plane were pushed beyond its design limits. The radar would show what would still be a largely intact aircraft descending in altitude, as almost no intentional maneuver could cause the plane to immediately break up.
Search for an island with polar bears and humungous magnetic field, and there you will find the plane.
It is doubtful what the radar *did *show, since the plane was already at its extreme range.
Fringe tangent:
The plane flew though an electrical storm which was actually a weak spot and crossed over to the alternate universe.
I think there may be an overestimation of the quality of radar data here. I am no expert, but I watch a lot of airplane crash investigation programs (I have my DVR set to record several series), read books on other types of accidents and safety investigations (my work is connected to the safety field), and am a longtime reader of military history (in which we see many cases of radar and visual scouting failures, misunderstandings, and false assumptions), and I would be surprised if radar data in this case could show anything like “literally there one instant and gone the next” or the like. Over and over again we see and read accounts where a plane disappears off radar while still at significant altitude. My impression is that we do not, typically, know moment-to-moment as much as people assume about these things.
Then there is the possibility of translation confusion. When a Malaysian authority says something disappeared off radar it may not mean the plane “could not have” dived.
We are reading too much into small details because we want answers immediately. Answers will more than likely come, but it will take a while.
What has never been addressed so far is was there a military radar unit tracking the aircraft. It’s rather odd that the US Navy’s 7th Fleet hasn’t weighed in on this matter. They certainly would track most (if not all) of the air traffic in Southeast Asia.
Certainly they would have “seen” something.
If anybody’s military had any observations to report, they have no reason not to have reported them by now.
To the terrorism point, is there any organized movement of any size in Malaysia violently opposing the government? I don’t know of one. Or one in China that hasn’t been suppressed, for that matter? The two guys traveling on stolen passports both got their tickets in Pattaya, Thailand, so could there be some connection with the political strife there?
There is a lot of political anger directed toward the government from the Chinese (around 26% of the population) and Indians (around 9% of the population) of Malaysia, due to the “affirmative action” policies for the ethnic Malays, but as far as I know there is very little of this which involves organized violence.
Breaking news is that the tickets that used the stolen passports were purchased by an Iranian man. Way too early to see what, if anything, this might mean.
Has anyone looked into the whereabouts of David Copperfield because this is starting to look like magic. Or aliens. Or a gap that we all assumed wasn’t there in our technology.
Also this guy: https://twitter.com/KaidenDL is one of the ones who missed the plane. Was so pissed he didn’t call his wife or work right away and when shit hit the fan he tweeted this:
“@Cylithria can’t reach you by phone. We missed the flight. Rory and I are OKAY Ria. I’m NOT ON THE FLIGHT RIA. IM OK.”
Or maybe we’ve found a wormhole. Probably misplaced from the Bermuda Triangle.
It soft landed in a big pile of socks ?
My parents are on a cruise around Southeast Asia (Singapore to Hong Kong and points in between), and yesterday the captain announced that they were leaving their planned route in order to take part in the search efforts. He asked passengers out on the decks to keep an eye open for wreckage.
Well there’s certainly a few in China. The Kunming Train Stationattack at the start of March shows that. Interestingly no group has claimed responsibility for that atrocity. Maybe there’s a connection there?
Wow. How did your parents feel about that? I bet most passengers being willing to help, but what a sad interruption to a vacation.
not if you shut off the transponder or it failed due to electrical problems. They could have had a fire in the equipment bay that quickly got out of control. If they loose their flight instruments at 35,000 feet it’s difficult to maintain the flight envelope. It’s Air France all over again.