missing plane

Who would he call to? If he had signed off from atc he was presumably out of controlled airspace. So maybe he did make a mayday call but his radio was not working due to the damage to the electrical systems or there was simply no one who was in range to hear it.
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The aircraft was at the Flight Information Region Boundary, and he would have called Vietnam's Control Center having been handed off from Malaysia's. In the same way as someone coming from Holland to the UK, would be handed over from Maastrict to London.

There's more than one radio on an airliner, and there is a common distress frequency, which is monitored by everyone.

Not every act of terror is 'claimed', and a fair number are claimed by people who had nothing to do with it. The lack of a claim means nothing other than no claim has been made. The object is achieved either way, it makes people wonder if they are safe flying. The fact that it has gone off on it's merry way, is more indicative of hijack/terrorism/crew doing a runner with the plane than the fires/technical issue theories.
 
Bernie174 said:
Not every act of terror is 'claimed', and a fair number are claimed by people who had nothing to do with it. The lack of a claim means nothing other than no claim has been made. The object is achieved either way, it makes people wonder if they are safe flying. The fact that it has gone off on it's merry way, is more indicative of hijack/terrorism/crew doing a runner with the plane than the fires/technical issue theories.
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Not enough is known IMHO to rule anything out one way or another at the moment, but it's still a big jump for me to assume a deliberate act based on the facts that we do have.
Simplest solutions are still the most plausible until there's something more concrete pointing in another direction.
And honestly, I just struggle with a motive for hijack/terrorism/theft.

> If we assume that the motive was to cause simple to terror / fear of flying then without a claim that sort of falls a bit flat for me.
Who's supposed to be afraid? The whole air-traveling world? And of whom? Instilling fear in the whole world of some great unknown force doesn't seem to achieve anything of benefit to anyone.
And if that was the intention it's failed miserably because nobody knows that it was definitely a deliberate act rather than an accident, and it's hardly ground air travel to a standstill.

> Hijack with the intention to hold passengers to ransom for financial / political gain? If that's the case then something went horribly wrong otherwise something would have been come out by now.

> Act of terror involving destroying the plane with all on board? Again absolutely no evidence of that and you would think that would be an act to be done very publicly and visibly.

> Simple theft? There have to be far easier ways of stealing a plane without the inconvenience of 230 people to deal with.

> Abduction of a particular passenger / group of passengers? As above. There have to be far easier ways than taking an entire plane.

> Test run for something bigger? Not the brightest idea in the world, talk about showing your hand. Monitoring and tracking of aircraft is likely to be ramped up more than a notch or two after this, making any subsequent attempts all the more difficult.


I just haven't come across a hijack / terrorism theory that makes any sense to me :thinking:
 
All these theories being bandied about except............................I'm surprised no ones come up with the plane being abducted by aliens.
 
i think the craziest "theory" I have heard is that it was hijacked/kidnapped because alledgedly some Russian Billionaire on board.....

Well, I don't know about you Ladies and Gent's of TP (and MVHCWT/SLimbert/norfolk mafia) but if I was a slightly iffy Russian billionaire, I probably (most likely) would not fly commercial! :thinking:
 
Well there are so many conspiracy theories it is hard to pick a favourite.
are you lot authors (writers) because some of these theories are truly amazing and should be published.

here's a theory for you. "maybe the plane never actually took off" !
:runaway:
 
News just in that they Australians have got some satellite images in Indian ocean of 2 large items
 
on the news just now - the Australians are sending a Military aircraft to check those out

Les ;)
 
cambsno said:
Don't see how it could be a rehearsal:

- It would alert authorities for future attempts making it harder
- Whats the point in rehearsing if you will be dead so can't use the experience!
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I'm struggling to remember an interview I heard a week ago, but the expert said there has been a case where terrorists had a trial run at crashing a plane. The plan was to scale it up and crash several US planes over one weekend but they wanted to test first.....

Re the lack of a "claim" - if it's a small terrorist organisation then there's actually a reasonable chance all the people in it were on board* so there's nobody left to call the press.

But I still can't see anything fundamentally wrong with the electrical fire theory.

-------
* This is based on an episode of the documentary series "Ultimate Force" with the investigative journalist Mr Ross Kemp.
 
Lez325 said:
on the news just now - the Australians are sending a Military aircraft to check those out

Les ;)
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Yeah - they seem to be downplaying them too. "Hard to find and may be something else".

IIRC the problem with the Chinese "debris" was that it was too big. I think this is bigger.
 
JonathanRyan said:
Yeah - they seem to be downplaying them too. "Hard to find and may be something else".

IIRC the problem with the Chinese "debris" was that it was too big. I think this is bigger.
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Just have to wait and see, the truth is out there

Les
 
JonathanRyan said:
Yeah - they seem to be downplaying them too. "Hard to find and may be something else".

IIRC the problem with the Chinese "debris" was that it was too big. I think this is bigger.
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They've said it's about 24m in length, which is around the size of a 777s wing (26m).
 
ghoti said:
They've said it's about 24m in length, which is around the size of a 777s wing (26m).
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I think that was about the size of the Chinese stuff. "Experts" said that was too big. But fortunately there is very little expertise in the science of dropping passenger planes from very high up.
 
Mmmmmm, OK. I said that I didn't have enough knowledge to refute the "electrical fire" theory. According to the BBC and a bunch of people who know far more than me, it's wrong.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-echochambers-26640114

However, I can't help but notice how often the experts use the word "unlikely" rather than "impossible". A plane vanishing (or even crashing) is pretty unlikely. I'd be happier rejecting it if they could provide reasons this theory is impossible.
 
JonathanRyan said:
Mmmmmm, OK. I said that I didn't have enough knowledge to refute the "electrical fire" theory. According to the BBC and a bunch of people who know far more than me, it's wrong.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-echochambers-26640114

However, I can't help but notice how often the experts use the word "unlikely" rather than "impossible". A plane vanishing (or even crashing) is pretty unlikely. I'd be happier rejecting it if they could provide reasons this theory is impossible.
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yes lots of unknowns.

i think the one that made me the most angry was an "expert" on the BBC news who was getting very red faced about the "fact" that "planes simply do not fall out of the sky these days", seeming to suggest that there was human intervention. how he could say that with such vigor with little to no facts irritated me.
 
That article closed with the words

<snip>
As long as there is no definitive word about the fate of MH370, theories - from respected experts and amateurs relying on a hunch and a little help from Google Earth - will continue to bounce around the internet.

Some will catch on and go viral, until they are debunked or overtaken by new facts.
<snip>

Even when the "truth" is known, it will still be reported in different ways by different people I expect.
 
cambsno said:
Don't see how it could be a rehearsal:

- It would alert authorities for future attempts making it harder
- Whats the point in rehearsing if you will be dead so can't use the experience!

Pilot appears to have practiced landings at remote airports according to press. My guess is the erratic flying could be the co-pilot fighting with the pilot (or vice versa) to regain control, then the pilot flew it too where he wanted it. My guess is it has crashed somewhere remote.
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a) authorities are already alerted to hijack possibilities - in the US particularly it couldnt be made much harder - hence rehearsing in a country like malaysia where security is more lax

b) the cell organisers wouldn't have been on the plane - they'd have sent some brainwashed cannon fodder to do the dirty work , and thus can still learn from how the authorities reacted

According to the radio this morning Australia think they've found the wreckage floating in the indian ocean.
 
SarahLee said:
[snip] I just haven't come across a hijack / terrorism theory that makes any sense to me :thinking:
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Well this is exactly the point isn't it, the longer this goes on without any 'claim', the more the thing we [by 'we' I mean sensible people with no interest in mad conspiracies other than as passing 'amusement'] all expect to have happened, probably has. The aircraft is at the bottom of the ocean having crashed for whatever reason with incredibly sad loss of all life on board.


As for the objects, the satellite images are from Sunday, 4 days ago, the aircraft disappeared over a week before that, so a huge amount of caution has to be taken here as any wreckage could have drifted 100's of miles in those time frames, so even if those objects can be found again using tidal models of where they might be, it could take a while and only for them to turn out to be unrelated. Though in many ways, I hope they are found and are related, those relatives need to know and need some kind of closure.
 
Bernie174 said: ↑
"Not every act of terror is 'claimed', and a fair number are claimed by people who had nothing to do with it. The lack of a claim means nothing other than no claim has been made. The object is achieved either way, it makes people wonder if they are safe flying. The fact that it has gone off on it's merry way, is more indicative of hijack/terrorism/crew doing a runner with the plane than the fires/technical issue theories."

Yip, state sponsored terrorism (e.g. Pan Am 103) usually goes unclaimed to avoid reprisals.

Search of S. Indian ocean called off for today. Darkness has arrived.
 
"
http://mobile.philly.com/news/?wss=/philly/news&id=250830521
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It's also rubbish.

"O2 masks a big no no"

Really?

It may surprise some to know that there are around 2 full emegencies (thats call out of the whole shooting match of emergency services to be ready at the airport for the aircraft arrival) at Heathrow a week. Some of those involve suspected fires, electrical or otherwise and or smoke in the cockpit. First thing the flight deck crew do is put on an oxygen mask. Is that a danger? No, of course it isn't! The O2 is going into the crews lungs. Besides it isn't pure oxygen, the mix is about the same as air. So obviously it's adding nothing to the danger.

So, there the crew are, according to genius, pulling circuit breakers, and before they pull the radio ones, they don't bother to mention they have a problem? It might well, if his scenario had any validity, have been a bloody good idea to let ATC know, as the fire service might be a bit handy if they got it on the ground, as Saudia once found out with a Tristar.

In none of the 20 or so smoke in the cockpit/Suspect fires on aircraft I went to did they pull the radio CB's. Even in the Swissair MD11 crash in Canada/US in the 1990's where the aircraft did have an electrical fire, the crew managed to talk to ATC. They also put it down on the sea, albeit badly, within minutes, why? Because aircraft are now dependent on the power. if that goes they don't fly.

He mentions tyre fires, on an aircraft designed in the 1950's, the DC8, that sort of issue has been designed out now. Besides, the warnings would have been more than apparent, and a radio call made long before it could become an issue.

I understand why Pilots use terms like unlikely. Simply because many of the theories being bounded about, are just that unlikely, but there has to be an exception to everything, and although it's a very very slim chance, it can't be excluded. As I said at the very start, the usual cause of a sudden end of communications and an aircraft disappearing is catastrophic fail to the airframe, the cause of that is either a bomb, or structural failure. I didn't exclude the possibility of the second of those, just as I wouldn't completely exclude the possibility of fire, it's just the chances, given the way airliners are designed now, it is at the lower end of the possibility scale.

So based on reasoning and a bit of knowledge of aircraft systems, thats why I doubt the case is a fire at that point of the flight.
 
Bottom line is - No one knows what has happened. Conjecture is all that exists. Pprune is full of guesswork (339 pages of it just now). Drivel, in perpetuity, abounds and so it will continue until some firm evidence is found, if it ever will).
 
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Sarah Palin says we shouldn't dismiss the idea that it flew directly to heaven.
 
The Daily Star ( I know - again I didn't buy it - I just saw it on a rack in Tesco) in huge print " Plane was heading for an American terrorist rendition site" then in tiny print " an alarming new theory suggests today"

That's about as credible as the alien abduction theory - I'd suggest that if the Americans wanted to render a potential terrorist they'd do it on the down low - not by abducting 238 other people as well
 
archangel said:
Looks like more debris has been found....
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Photographed from a sat. 4 days ago. No one has got to it (whatever it is) yet and a cyclone is moving in.
 
neil_g said:
I wish Sky (and other channels) would stop running these "special" programs with experts speculating their asses off. It's not journalism, it's hearsay and it's only serving to fuel the rumour mill..
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Agree 100%. If they want to know facts then they just need to read the expert analysis in this thread.
 
neil_g said:
I wish Sky (and other channels) would stop running these "special" programs with experts speculating their asses off. It's not journalism, it's hearsay and it's only serving to fuel the rumour mill..
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Watched a couple of minutes of this while having a break. Pure garbage.

The graphics were beyond awful, it looked straight out of the 90s! Even the 'experts' were trying to play it all down, the presenter was doing her best to over-dramatise things!
 
neil_g said:
I wish Sky (and other channels) would stop running these "special" programs with experts speculating their asses off. It's not journalism, it's hearsay and it's only serving to fuel the rumour mill..
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I agree. Endless updates with "new" news which actually is no news at all since there is damn all new to tell.

The sat pics are bloody pathetic. Not only 4 days old old but hellish pixelated and many times worse than what we get from Google Earth and other contemporary satpics. I can look at Google pics of my house and easily identify my car and parts of my property and yet the rubbish shown that we are expected to beleive as debris 24 metres long is entirely unintelligible.

The whole thing is utterly chaotic.
 
neil_g said:
I wish Sky (and other channels) would stop running these "special" programs with experts speculating their asses off. It's not journalism, it's hearsay and it's only serving to fuel the rumour mill..
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Why does this irritate you? You don't have to watch these programmes, and most of the content on this thread is just speculation too. My wife lives in the UK and doesn't have television, and I don't have one here either. I don't even have a radio. We both catch up with the news online, once a day or so, and only read the reports/articles we're interested in.
 
MartynK said:
Why does this irritate you? You don't have to watch these programmes, and most of the content on this thread is just speculation too. My wife lives in the UK and doesn't have television, and I don't have one here either. I don't even have a radio. We both catch up with the news online, once a day or so, and only read the reports/articles we're interested in.
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Hence it only stayed on until I found something else to watch.

Same way I only skim this thread as it's 90% bs.
 
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