# MH370: 4 Years Later; Theories **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 3, 2018, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-4-years-later-theories/811689 "2018-04-03T04:02:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2018, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-4-years-later-theories/811689/1 "2018-04-03T04:02:13Z")
Cockpit doors were made more secure after 9/11. Do any of the flight attendants, or anyone else outside of the cockpit during flight, have a key or other means to open the cockpit door from the outside? Some leading theories include: — mass hypoxia event — fire — rogue pilot If it was a hypoxia event, and limited to the cockpit and if the flight crew were incapacitated early on while all other people on board were alert, it would be unnerving to say the least for the flight attendants to not have any comm with the cockpit, possibly for hours, and be awake and alert and realize there’s nothing they can do. MH370’s disappearance is so puzzling. ---
**Author:** ![Arabella\_Flynn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8491ac/32.png) [@Arabella\_Flynn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arabella_Flynn)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2018, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-4-years-later-theories/811689/2 "2018-04-03T08:00:49Z")
I’m not an expert, but I always thought it sounded like a gradual decompression incident, much like Helios 522. The most puzzling part of the incident is that the flight crew seems to have taken a number of irrational actions, and, well – how well do _you_ troubleshoot when you’re hypoxic? Their attempts to fix the air conditioning despite ATC asking important questions like ‘did you remember to set the pressurization system to AUTO?’ are exactly the sort of thing you expect from people who recognize something’s gone wrong, but don’t have the ability to figure out what it is. You get similar behavior from mountaineers who climb too high without supplemental oxygen. A slow enough leak would have been pretty much undetectable, mechanically/electronically speaking. You’d only know it was happening by observing the signs of oxygen deprivation among the passengers and crew, and by then it’d already be too late. As a side note, I’ve always found it comforting that in fifty years we have only ever completely lost – as in, have absolutely no idea where on Earth it might have even gone down, if it did crash, not even a decent general idea – [one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Angola_727_disappearance) jumbo jet. ONE. We’ve lost more submarines than that. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2018, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-4-years-later-theories/811689/3 "2018-04-03T14:08:09Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > Do any of the flight attendants, or anyone else outside of the cockpit during flight, have a key or other means to open the cockpit door from the outside? If they did, then [Germanwings flight 9525 wouldn’t have been crashed by its suicidal/homicidal copilot,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525) who locked the pilot out of the cockpit and dialed in a controlled descent into a mountainside. > [@Arabella Flynn](#): > > You get similar behavior from mountaineers who climb too high without supplemental oxygen. It’s even more readily observed in people who sit through a session in a [high-altitude simulation chamber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypobaric_chamber). Good [SmarterEveryDay video here;](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUfF2MTnqAw) by the end, he’s being told repeatedly to put his mask on, but he can’t quite grasp that he’s supposed to, you know, put his mask on. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2018, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-4-years-later-theories/811689/4 "2018-04-03T14:19:30Z")
It’s a very big ocean. Easy to lose an airplane. ---
**Author:** ![excavating\_for\_a\_mind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e8c25b/32.png) [@excavating\_for\_a\_mind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/excavating_for_a_mind)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2018, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-4-years-later-theories/811689/5 "2018-04-03T14:49:28Z")
My pet theory was that there was “nerve gas” released in the cabin. At the time, there were alerts out about some vague threat of a terrorist actions about something that could be stored in a toothpaste tube or similar. After the incident, all warnings about that threat stopped. It would make sense that if such a thing happened, ATC would not mention it directly, specifically if they had no direct evidence. The pilot could have taken it upon himself to censor his transmissions to avoid the obvious result. It would explain the aircraft rise to 45,000 feet and back. The pilot was trying to “air out” the cabin. All passengers would have been dead by that time and several pressurize/depressurize cycles at 45,000 feet is probably much more efficient than a dozen or more at 30,000. After returning to cruising altitude, it would also make sense for the pilot (assuming the only living beings were in the cockpit) to set a “run out of fuel” destination on the autopilot before allowing the cockpit door to be opened. Can you imagine what would happen with commercial aviation? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2018, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-4-years-later-theories/811689/6 "2018-04-03T14:50:11Z")
The most incriminating part of it, IMHO, is that the airplane’s diversion off-course took place precisely in that gap of communication between Malaysian air traffic control and when it was supposed to check in with Vietnamese air traffic control. That timing is far too suspicious and convenient; screams ‘rogue pilot’. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2018, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-4-years-later-theories/811689/7 "2018-04-03T14:52:20Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > It’s a very big ocean. Easy to lose an airplane. Yes, the way I think about it is knowing that a plane is lost “somewhere in the United States” and you can only look for it on cloudy moonless nights from a hot air balloon with a flashlight. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2018, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-4-years-later-theories/811689/8 "2018-04-03T15:22:03Z")
Shortly after the incident there was an article in which a pilot made an awfully persuasive case that what happened what consistent with there being a fire aboard the aircraft. It made sense; a depressurization incident makes sense, too. I’d say it’s 99% likely it’s one of the other. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2018, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-4-years-later-theories/811689/9 "2018-04-03T16:33:50Z")
Just curious, let’s say that by some miracle they find the wreckage and the recorders. Would they still be readable? What’s the greatest time so far between a crash and recovery of a useful recorder? ---
**Author:** ![Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b487fb/32.png) [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walken_After_Midnight)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2018, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-4-years-later-theories/811689/10 "2018-04-03T16:44:05Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Just curious, let’s say that by some miracle they find the wreckage and the recorders. Would they still be readable? What’s the greatest time so far between a crash and recovery of a useful recorder? Both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder will probably have survived. However, the cockpit voice recorder used on Flight MH370 records on a loop and deletes all but the final two hours. This is typically a long enough time to determine the cause of any potential aircraft crash, but since MH370 flew for several hours after going missing, audio of what happened around the time of its disappearance will have been erased over. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2018, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-4-years-later-theories/811689/11 "2018-04-03T17:03:20Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Just curious, let’s say that by some miracle they find the wreckage and the recorders. Would they still be readable? What’s the greatest time so far between a crash and recovery of a useful recorder? The recorders for Air France 447 were submerged for almost two years before being successfully recovered and analyzed. [Itavia 870’s recorders were recovered after 7 years (CVR) and 11 years (FDR).](https://news.aviation-safety.net/2016/06/19/flight-recorders-under-water-list-of-longest-periods-before-recovery/) The [CVR worked at that point,](https://www.tailstrike.com/270680.htm) and apparently [so did the FDR.](https://aviation-safety.net/pubs/other/Taylor_paper_Ustica_illustrated.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2018, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-4-years-later-theories/811689/12 "2018-04-03T17:20:39Z")
> [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](#): > > since MH370 flew for several hours after going missing, audio of what happened around the time of its disappearance will have been erased over. If this was a rogue pilot, chances are this was an intentional part of his plan. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2018, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-4-years-later-theories/811689/13 "2018-04-03T17:39:23Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > It’s a very big ocean. Easy to lose an airplane. At first, the search wasn’t even in the right ocean. The crash has given a bit of momentum to the idea of streaming CVR and FDR data continuously to ground stations, via satellite, although the industry’s reluctance to spend money they’re not required to is an obstacle. So often things seem obvious in hindsight, after people die. ---
**Author:** ![Dahu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dahu/32/3416_2.png) [@Dahu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dahu)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2018, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-4-years-later-theories/811689/14 "2018-04-03T20:43:25Z")
> [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](#): > > Both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder will probably have survived. However, the cockpit voice recorder used on Flight MH370 records on a loop and deletes all but the final two hours. This is typically a long enough time to determine the cause of any potential aircraft crash, but since MH370 flew for several hours after going missing, audio of what happened around the time of its disappearance will have been erased over. Out of interest why is this? Surely the memory requirement to keep a whole flight’s voice data is minimal. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2018, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-4-years-later-theories/811689/15 "2018-04-03T21:13:59Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > The crash has given a bit of momentum to the idea of streaming CVR and FDR data continuously to ground stations, via satellite, although the industry’s reluctance to spend money they’re not required to is an obstacle. So often things seem obvious in hindsight, after people die. Well, it wouldn’t save a single life. We’d just know where to pick up the corpses. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2018, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-4-years-later-theories/811689/16 "2018-04-03T21:22:37Z")
> [@Dahu](#): > > Out of interest why is this? Surely the memory requirement to keep a whole flight’s voice data is minimal. They use an endless loop tape. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2018, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-4-years-later-theories/811689/17 "2018-04-03T21:35:33Z")
> [@Dahu](#): > > Out of interest why is this? Surely the memory requirement to keep a whole flight’s voice data is minimal. [Because the law requires only two hours.](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/121.359) It’s extremely rare that a voice recording longer than two hours would be of any use to crash investigators - so rare that it’s not worth the effort to change the requirement. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2018, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-4-years-later-theories/811689/18 "2018-04-04T00:13:00Z")
> [@Dahu](#): > > Out of interest why is this? Surely the memory requirement to keep a whole flight’s voice data is minimal. Hindsight is wonderful, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-4-years-later-theories/811689/19 "2019-06-18T23:46:35Z")
For those interested, there is a fascinating article in The Atlantic online: [https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/590653/](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/590653/) I would be interested in hearing pilot’s opinions of the claims made in the article. Conclusion… the author makes a strong claim for it being a rouge move by the pilot. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2019, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-4-years-later-theories/811689/20 "2019-06-19T00:36:18Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > For those interested, there is a fascinating article in The Atlantic online: > > [Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: Where Is It? - The Atlantic](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/590653/) > > I would be interested in hearing pilot’s opinions of the claims made in the article. I happened to read that excellent article last night. I had come here to post it. I think the author is dead on. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mh370-4-years-later-theories/811689.md?page=2)