Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 vanishes without trace

[elbows]

I see that the families of those who died on the Malaysian Airways flight have launched a $5 million fund to try to tempt a 'whistleblower' to come forward with information.

Do we presume that they are seriously of the opinion that this aircraft disappearance has sinister aspects to it? If so, what could they be?

No theories really do it for me, so I won't give any suggestions, not unless any worthy strands come to light.

There are many things the desperate could understandably be tempted to believe. Uncertainty is a breeding ground for all manner of wacky questions, but also some that are slightly more reasonable. e.g. scenarios where the disappearance of the plane was not sinister in a conspiraloon style, but where one or more governments might still have covered something up along the way, perhaps simply to make themselves seem less incompetent. Likewise commercial reasons, e.g. covering up a certain fault.

But like I said, I can't think of any of even those sort of possibilities that are really plausible or compelling. Just people desperate for answers and possibly struggling to get to grips with the fact a large passenger plane can just vanish like that. Personally I don't have trouble believing it could just vanish like this, that there are still some bigs gaps in our surveillance capabilities.

 

[2hats]

BBC Horizon documentary on the investigation thus far. Seems to be a fairly reasonable summary of events.

In summary - essentially they need to look further SW along the southern arc.

 

[kebabking]

i watched it, and i'm still none the wiser - why did HMS Echo pick up 37.5MHz 'pings' that were later judged 'invalid', why did the same thing happen to the Aussies?

what is letting off 37.5MHz pings in the middle of nowhere?

 

[laptop]

what is letting off 37.5MHz pings in the middle of nowhere?

Noise in the detection circuits, sort of randomness?

 

[existentialist]

i watched it, and i'm still none the wiser - why did HMS Echo pick up 37.5MHz 'pings' that were later judged 'invalid', why did the same thing happen to the Aussies?

what is letting off 37.5MHz pings in the middle of nowhere?

MHz? kHz?

 

[2hats]

Could be noise from local on board systems. Could be a transient reflection/ducting/refraction of the actual locator beacon signals from a more distant location (cf deep sound channel, SOFAR).

 

[Dogsauce]

It was just a fake transmitter put there by the CIA/North Koreans/joos or whoever to distract from the real location of the plane, which is on a secret airstrip on Diego Garcia/the Falklands/moon or whatever.

 

[2hats]

MH370: satellite phone call revealed as Australia gives update on search.

Failed call placed by Malaysia Airlines ground staff has been traced and supports Indian Ocean crash theory, say authorities.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-revealed-as-australia-gives-update-on-search

Analysis of signals related to failed attempts to call MH370 crew via satellite phone suggests the aircraft turned south slightly earlier than previously thought and ended the flight on the previously identified seventh arc, in the southern region of that curve, consistent with the current search area.

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

This video is very interesting. Poses some good, real questions.

 

[butchersapron]

Yes, an anti-semitic conspiracy loon. That's bound to be useful.

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

Idk much about him

[Oh, fuck that youtube channel, just interested in the former official's words.]

 

[2hats]

Investigators mapping the Indian Ocean floor in search of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have uncovered "hard objects" that appear to be inconsistent with their surroundings.

Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, said fresh surveys of the ocean floor had revealed interesting findings, including the unidentified objects. He warned that there are no guarantees that the finding will be plane wreckage.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/malaysia-...pots-unidentified-hard-094840042.html#mG4TPIm

They could be man made or they could be even be strange rock formations. Further investigation will be required.

 

[brogdale]

TFH-time....The Indy reports Marc Dugain's theory...as one commenter paraphrases...

The Americans shot the plane down by mistake and then covered it up and no one knew it was there because there was a fire on board and it had been hijacked remotely by hackers?

 

[2hats]

Would seem a little odd to 'cover it up' given that many governments are quite strident about how they will shoot down any aircraft, including civilian commercial passenger flights, that they consider to be a threat/on a suspicious routing. Also, if they were pootling around the Maldives at low altitude then they would seriously be limiting their capacity for reaching Diego Garcia, if at all. But I suspect that has been covered before...

 

[2hats]

Flight magazine provides a comprehensive report on calculations made by an experienced, senior 777 captain who suspects that MH370 came down just outside the edge of the current search area, not too far off from where a couple of independent investigators estimate it to have crashed. This information has apparently been offered up to the ATSB for consideration.

 

[Spymaster]

The search has officially ended and an accident declared.

 

[2hats]

More accurately, the search for survivors has ended. They are now legally dead (so insurance/compensation can pay out). The search for the aircraft/parts thereof and recovery of such continues.

 

[Idris2002]

A strange, strange story:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/02/jeff-wise-mh370-theory.html

The author thinks he may have found what really happened to flight MH730: it was diverted to an airstrip in Kazakhstan.

He does, however, take a step back from his speculations, and deftly removes his tinfoil hat.

 

[2hats]

If you wanted to dispose of a 777 you wouldn't dig a 777 sized hole in the desert. You'd carve it up (cutting cord, say) and shove it down a hole (or local disused missile silo). Lots of Baikonur (particularly the shuttle programme) infrastructure has been left crumbling since the Soviet Union itself folded (famously one of the main hangers collapsed and destroyed the only flown shuttle airframe, Buran, and the Energia test stack it was sitting on).

In other news the ATSB Commissioner has stated that he is fairly confident that MH370 debris will be found by the end of May (end of the current search window).

Also, National Geographic's Air Crash Investigation recently broadcast a documentary on the case:

 

[Idris2002]

If you wanted to dispose of a 777 you wouldn't dig a 777 sized hole in the desert. You'd carve it up (cutting cord, say) and shove it down a hole (or local disused missile silo). Lots of Baikonur (particularly the shuttle programme) infrastructure has been left crumbling since the Soviet Union itself folded (famously one of the main hangers collapsed and destroyed the only flown shuttle airframe, Buran, and the Energia test stack it was sitting on).

In other news the ATSB Commissioner has stated that he is fairly confident that MH370 debris will be found by the end of May (end of the current search window).

Also, National Geographic's Air Crash Investigation recently broadcast a documentary on the case:

The great smell of SANITY - birds love it.

 

[Crispy]

(famously one of the main hangers collapsed and destroyed the only flown shuttle airframe, Buran, and the Energia test stack it was sitting on).

So sad

 

[Citizen66]

If you wanted to dispose of a 777 you wouldn't dig a 777 sized hole in the desert. You'd carve it up (cutting cord, say) and shove it down a hole (or local disused missile silo).

Although that would involve moving exhibit a rather than disposing of it conveniently (transporting it to a silo I mean, I suppose they could have dug a hole in the desert also).

 

[2hats]

Although that would involve moving exhibit a rather than disposing of it conveniently (transporting it to a silo I mean, I suppose they could have dug a hole in the desert also).

I rather suspect that you have missed the fact that this is Baikonur...

 

[Citizen66]

I rather suspect that you have missed the fact that this is Baikonur...

I suspect you're right.

 

[Citizen66]

Serves me right for playing the game of truthism.

 

[2hats]

I suspect you're right.

The hypothesis also ignores the fact that Baikonur is still a very active facility with a large number of local staff and international workers and even tourists visiting. It wouldn't be a particularly smart place to try to hide something from prying eyes. It also begs the question why? It's not as if Russia doesn't have the resources to obtain a plane via other means, even just go out and buy one (likewise for any cargo). It strikes me as getting over-complicated in order to try and fit the observed 'facts' (and more) which is a common short coming of conspiracy theories along with ignoring that the difficulty in keeping them secret rises exponentially with the number of people involved.

Most likely pieces of MH370 are in the southern Indian Ocean. The majority of the flotsam that hasn't become semi-submerged after prolonged immersion will just end up being circulated in the Indian Ocean Gyre perhaps popping up on the odd remote beach in years to come, where a fraction of such might be encountered by people, the majority of whom will not recognise what they are looking at (much of that material will be heavily soiled, twisted, weathered and bleached).

Returning to the ocean search, apparently some 40% of the planned search area has now been covered and has found (via sonar) a few hundred smaller man-made objects, and some eight larger man-made objects around the size of a typical shipping container. None of them are considered to be part of an aircraft debris field so have not been inspected directly.

 

[2hats]

The search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 cannot go on forever, Australia's deputy prime minister said, and discussions are already under way between Australia, China and Malaysia as to whether to call off the hunt within weeks.

Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss told Reuters that a decision would have to be taken well before then as to whether to continue into the vast 1.1 million sq km area around the primary search zone if nothing has been found.

Discussions had already begun about what to do in that event, including the possibility that the search might be called off, said Truss, who is also transport minister.

Australia and Malaysia contributed to evenly split the costs, estimated at up to A$52 million ($40.5 million), but Truss warned that continuing the search beyond that area would be impossible without more international help.

Source: Reuters.

At some point they will have to call it a day, but one would guess they are seeing if anyone else is willing to cough up some more money to complete (or extend) the search.

 

[2hats]

Apparently investigators are testing (or have tested) a sealed Malaysia Airlines hand wipe that was found on a WA beach (several months ago), though it's doubtful it could be proven (or even proven not) to come from MH370.

 

[laptop]

Apparently investigators are testing (or have tested) a sealed Malaysia Airlines hand wipe that was found on a WA beach (several months ago), though it's doubtful it could be proven (or even proven not) to come from MH370.

The packet was sent to Canberra for testing after being discovered on July 2 last year by retired couple Kingsley and Vicki Miller as they walked along the beach at the coastal town of Cervantes.

"We had been saying, 'let's look for stuff from MH370'," Mr Miller said.

 

[2hats]

Perhaps a systematic search of the westward facing WA coast (several thousand miles) by a few hundred moderately trained volunteers is close enough to be practical to entertain? Whether or not such turns up any potential debris, it could, when combined with ocean circulation models (and previous completed searches), help constrain subsequent oceanic searches in a bayesian fashion (the underlying mathematical process which facilitated discovery of the AF447 airframe).