Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 vanishes without trace

[2hats]

Yes plane would be 10km up and going at 900 kmph any stuff that floats could be carried a long way.

The PA103 debris field stretched some 130 km to the east coast. It's all down to the prevailing winds at all flight levels and, most likely in this case, ocean currents.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

The PA103 debris field stretched some 130 km to the east coast. It's all down to the prevailing winds at all flight levels and, most likely in this case, ocean currents.

but what's the likelihood of anything appearing on the west coast?

 

[purves grundy]

Was it? Not really been following the story tbh. Nothing has substantially changed with it since Saturday morning.

Yes, it was removed - always removed init. I mean, they checked in and checked baggage in too, so they must've shown up at the airport no>?

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Yes, it was removed - always removed init. I mean, they checked in and checked baggage in too, so they must've shown up at the airport no>?

Most likely. Again though, nothing suspect about that really.

 

[purves grundy]

Most likely. Again though, nothing suspect about that really.

Yeah agree - like the stolen PPs, nothing that necessarily indicates terrorist intent.

 

[2hats]

but what's the likelihood of anything appearing on the west coast?

That depends on what the authorities actually know as to what has been disclosed to the media. The last reported position would suggest searching the west coast (of Malaysia) would not be very fruitful. However we don't know what other sources of information the authorities have and in particular what primary radar data the local military bodies have nor what subset of that data if any they are willing to disclose (or equally what they don't have/know since it might indicate the extent of their abilities to potential adversaries).

 

[Spymaster]

Given the lack of debris and the limited fuel load available, the aircraft must have landed at a facility where its presence can be kept quiet. This would probably be either in the Vietnamese jungle (where recommissioning an old USAF runway would be quite straightforward) or, more likely in a remote region of China where the air traffic controllers could be relied upon to keep their mouths firmly shut. We can safely rule out North Korea for obvious reasons.

I doubt that the plane made landfall but reckon you're on the right lines with the Chinese involvement. Most likely they've managed to force the plane down and land it on an aircraft carrier. A really, really long one. And the carrier is hidden among the thousands of islands (perhaps even disguised AS an island) in the region.

Either way, it's not looking good for the passengers or their families.

Too right. Wouldn't want to be in their shoes.

 

[mauvais]

perhaps even disguised AS an island

That's the plot of the forthcoming Lost reboot.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Latest reports suggest the aircraft had a cargo of racing pigeons in the hold, they may have got agitated and started flapping their wings, thus preventing the plane from going down, so it's probably still up there in the stratosphere. Probably heading for Thirsk.

 

[Idris2002]

Latest reports suggest the aircraft had a cargo of racing pigeons in the hold, they may have got agitated and started flapping their wings, thus preventing the plane from going down, so it's probably still up there in the stratosphere. Probably heading for Thirsk.

 

[weltweit]

scrap that ....

The seas this plane has gone down in are very shallow compared to the sea in which the Air France plane crashed.

 

[2hats]

but what's the likelihood of anything appearing on the west coast?

To return to this - from the below it is clear that the authorities have additional, undisclosed information and the plane may have continued in flight westwards. What form this information takes/why they have reason to believe such isn't clear. Could be primary radar. Apparently isn't telemetry (ACARS and similar is reported as not being an option that was taken up on this equipment - source: Reuters).

Malaysian civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, whose agency is leading a multinational effort to find the Boeing 777, said
... the search includes northern parts of the Malacca Strait, on the opposite side of the Malay Peninsula and far west of the plane's last known location. Azharuddin would not explain why crews were searching there, saying, "There are some things that I can tell you and some things that I can't."

Source: AP

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

To return to this - from the below it is clear that the authorities have additional, undisclosed information and the plane may have continued in flight westwards. What form this information takes/why they have reason to believe such isn't clear. Could be primary radar. Apparently isn't telemetry (ACARS and similar is reported as not being an option that was taken up on this equipment).

Source: AP

all very strange

 

[weltweit]

Report: Investigators Skeptical Missing Plane Was Targeted
http://www.voanews.com/content/viet...ind-debris-from-missing-airliner/1867761.html

Investigators in Malaysia are skeptical the Malaysian airliner that disappeared Saturday was the target of an attack, according to U.S. and European government sources close to the probe....
....
However, Malaysian authorities have indicated mechanical or piloting problems could be reasons for the apparent crash, the U.S. sources said.

A U.S. source said one reason Malaysian authorities are leaning away from the act of terror theory is because electronic evidence indicates the jetliner may have made a turn back towards Kuala Lumpur before it disappeared.

But that does not explain why there was no sos call by the pilot.

 

[2hats]

But that does not explain why there was no sos call by the pilot.

Could be (for example) rogue pilot/aircrew, hijackers pulling comms circuit breakers, damage to comms circuits (fire?), hypoxia or a combination thereof followed by (un)controlled flight into terrain (resulting in a small debris field - an 'almost successful' ditching would minimise it; in the extreme the aircraft is almost intact on the ocean floor - which is less than a 100m deep in the areas being searched).

 

[Errol's son]

This saga makes me think of Egypt Air 990.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990

And the recent Ethiopian hijack diverted to Switzerland.

 

[weltweit]

2hats but in some of those options the emergency beacons would likely have been activated no?

 

[2hats]

2hats but in some of those options the emergency beacons would likely have been activated no?

Perhaps but they are not indestructible. Besides the ELT beacons are designed for impact on land. If the antenna is underwater sufficient signal will not reach the orbiting SARsat receivers. If the timescale of an immersion event is short enough (plane hits water and goes under) and geometries not favourable it would be possible for the beacon to be activated but no signal picked up. One assumes (hopes) the kit was maintained properly, of course.

 

[maomao]

This saga makes me think of Egypt Air 990.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990

And the recent Ethiopian hijack diverted to Switzerland.

Japan Air has form for an attempted though unsuccessful pilot suicide (though he killed 24 others):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_350

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Getting nearer to identifying them... not!

First they were of Asian appearance, then they weren't, then one of them was a Balotelli lookalike, but now they appear to be caucasian

and I never knew Interpol has 40 MILLION missing passports on its database

On a possible security lapse that had enabled the two impostors to get through Immigration checks, Hishammuddin said that more than 40 million stolen passports were now in the Interpol database.

Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said that one of the impostors had been identified from CCTV footage at KLIA.

“I can confirm that he is not a Malaysian, but cannot divulge which country he is from yet,” he said.

He, however, added: “The man we have identified is not from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China.”

“We are now working to identify the other suspect,” Khalid told reporters at the Kajang police headquarters yesterday.

He said police did not have verification of a Chinese militant group claiming responsibility for the missing plane.

Khalid was commenting on reports published on various Chinese news portals that a group calling itself the Chinese Martyrs’ Brigade claimed responsibility for crashing MH370.

Officials who viewed the CCTV footage said the two two men using the stolen passports appeared Caucasian.

and

The officials said the impostors must have replaced the photos of the passport owners with their own.

“The two impostors apparently got through the visual check quite easily because the photos on the passports matched their faces,” one of the officials said.

Department of Civil

 

[tim]

Drjazzz would have known what really happened. Presumably that's why those in authority have silenced him (and his piano)

 

[Barking_Mad]

The two men said by Interpol to have been travelling on stolen passports on the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 that mysteriously disappeared on Saturday have been identified as Iranian nationals.
* A BBC Persia report quotes an Iranian friend of one of the men, who said he hosted the pair in Kuala Lumpur after they arrived from Tehran in the days preceding their flight to Beijing.
* The friend, who knew one of the men from his school days in Iran, said the men had bought the fake passports because they wanted to migrate to Europe.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Anyone with knowledge of mobile phone networks explain why this is happening (as im sure there's a perfectly good explanation).

The mystery surrounding the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has deepened with the Chinese media reporting that several of the passengers' mobile phones were connecting when called by relatives, but the calls were not picked up.

The sister of one of the Chinese passengers on board the vanished flight rang his phone live on TV, the Mirror reports.

"This morning, around 11:40 [am], I called my older brother's number twice, and I got the ringing tone," said Bian Liangwei. At 2pm, she called again on air and heard it ringing once more.

"If I could get through, the police could locate the position, and there's a chance he could still be alive" she said. The number has now been passed on to Malaysia Airlines and the Chinese police.

A man from Beijing also called his missing brother on the plane, and reported to the airlines that the phone connected three times and rang before appearing to hang up, according to Shanghai Daily. Media reports claim that the brother had called the number in the presence of reporters before informing the airline.

The Straits Times reported that many of the family members told MAS commercial director Hugh Dunleavy that the commuters' mobile phones were ringing but they were not picked up.

Dunleavy replied that MAS was calling the mobile phones of the crew members as well, which were ringing, and that he had given the numbers to Chinese investigators.

Relatives of the passengers are urging the authorities to search for the location of phones that rang using the Global Positioning System.

However, at a press conference in Beijing, MAS spokesman Ignatius Ong said one of the numbers that had been passed on to the airline's command office in Kuala Lumpur did not receive an answer.

"I myself have called the number five times while the airline's command centre also called the number. We got no answering tone," said Ong.

A phone company in Singapore that was investigating this number said it was out of credit.

According to China.org.cn, 19 families have signed a joint statement saying that their family members' cell phones connected, but the calls hung up. The relatives have asked Malaysia Airlines to reveal any information they might be hiding, seeking an explanation for the eerie phone connections. The relatives have complained that the Malaysina Airlines is not responding as actively as it should.

Angry family members also threw water bottles at an MAS spokesman and threatened to protest in front of the Malaysian embassy in China if the airlines did not "disclose" the "truth".

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/missing-ma...r.it&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ibtimesuk

 

[Barking_Mad]

Ah here we go:

Reports are emerging that some cellphones of passengers on the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 are ringing — but no one picks up. However eerie this seems, it may have more to do with how mobile phones and networks operate than any deeper mystery.

According to a China.org.cn report, 19 families signed a statement saying that dialing their loved ones' phones leads to a ring, rather than going straight to voicemail, as one would expect of a phone in airplane mode or otherwise unable to be reached.

But it's not that simple. When you hit the call button on some phones, a ringing tone begins immediately.

"However, that does not mean the phone you are calling is ringing yet," wrote wireless analyst Jeff Kagan in an email to NBC News. "The network is searching for the phone. First based on where it last was, then it expands. Then if the network can't find the phone, the call terminates."

The search for the party on the receiving end may be nearly instantaneous, or take a few seconds — during which time the phone (depending on model, network and other variables) may or may not make a ringing noise to indicate to the caller that it is attempting to make the cell connection. So while it may ring four times for you, the person you're calling may only hear it ring once -- or not at all.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/mi...es-passengers-phones-ringing-maybe-not-n49371

 

[Barking_Mad]

All gone a bit x-files in this article!

http://www.examiner.com/article/mal...onic-weaponry-20-ew-defense-linked-passengers

Freescale statement: http://media.freescale.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=196520&p=irol-newsarticle

 

[Indeliblelink]

Worth a browse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aerial_disappearances

 

[2hats]

Just a little bizarre that some official decided to cut and paste the legs of one of the two fake passport holders on to the other...

 

[Barking_Mad]

Just a little bizarre that some official decided to cut and paste the legs of one of the two fake passport holders on to the other...

WTF?

 

[albionism]

got a link for that pic ? cheers

 

[fishfinger]

got a link for that pic ? cheers

scroll down
http://www.theguardian.com/world/bl...rch-refocused-on-malacca-straits-live-updates