The Mystery of Missing Malaysian Flight MH370

ScottyMcGee · #61

Seemed like everyone made the jokes I wanted to make already.

Here are some of my wilder theories:

1. A mass suicide. Everyone onboard actually got together to commit suicide.

2. Someone(s) was onboard who belonged to some government agency (those two men with fake passports?), got in some kind of trouble, and the plane may have actually been found but is covered up by authorities for whatever reason.

3. Some kind of human trafficking ring that tried to smuggle all those people.

Now here are a couple serious theories:

1. I actually like the accidental one the HotD posted before, involving some kind of electrical fire or whatever and the pilot turning back.

2. However, I do believe there was some kind of malicious intent by one or more people onboard. It then involves the phenomena of the "graveyard spiral." A lot of airplane disappearances involve the graveyard spiral. Someone not trained (or with very little training and just nerves) tried to get a hold of the plane after the hijackers were apprehended. Maybe the pilots were killed or injured during the hijacking. Regardless, someone who didn't know how to fly the plane tried to fly the plane. Graveyard spirals are known to make one go so far off the map because you think you're going in one direction but you're actually spiraling in a wide circle down to oblivion. This could be due to many conditions. Weather (Although it's been said it was clear), sensory illusion, panic, etc.

Since it was much bigger than a biplane, it could have spiraled, straightened out, spiraled again, etc, ect. Going wildly off the map and crashing at a very high speed into oblivion.

#62

Still... something is happening:

MH370: Transport Minister Warren Truss announces underwater search for missing Malaysia Airlines plane will begin in August

INVESTIGATORS believe someone in the cockpit of MH370 turned on the plane’s autopilot before it disappeared, as Australian search chiefs announced a new phase in the hunt for the missing airliner.
Transport Minister Warren Truss said it was “highly, highly likely” the missing Malaysian Airlines flight was on autopilot when it crashed into the southern Indian Ocean on March 8, becoming the “greatest aviation mystery in global history”.

The revelation that autopilot was activated raises further suspicion the plane’s disappearance was a mass atrocity committed by either the captain or copilot of the plane.

And investigators had yet another revelation, telling reporters it is believed the missing jet likely plunged into the ocean further south than the current search area.

http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-up ... 6967783002

#63

ORLY? I wonder why he doesn't want to reveal his information...

A new mystery surrounding the disappearance of MH370 emerged today after a police chief claimed he knew what had happened to the Malaysian Airlines jet.

The head of the Indonesian Police Force, General Sutarman - who uses only one name - reportedly told a meeting of airline officials and senior police that 'I actually know what had actually happened with MH370,' giving rise to suggestions officials were aware of what caused the Boeing 777-200 aircraft to disappear but have chosen not to reveal the information.

His comment was witnessed by representatives of Lion Air and several high-ranking police officers in Jakarta, according to a report by the Indonesian news portal, Kompas.com.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... g-jet.html

#64

It's from the Daily Mail and isn't even the right country. Assuming DM isn't just making things up again, he probably just wants attention.

#65

True that, IAN... but the other sites I read it on, you need to be a member... *shrugs* Meanwhile my ORLY? stands. ;)

ScottyMcGee · #66

Still think about this from time to time. I've basically stuck to two ideas.

1. The "fantastic" theory of mine is that they actually have recovered everything - there's just a massive coverup by government powers because of the two suspicious people with fake passports who may have been government agents who went rogue or something. Some kind of undercover fiasco that went on.

2. The mundane theory that it was purely an accident and things got f-ed up because of some malfunction, and since nobody knew where the plane went for a considerable amount of time before action took place, the ocean took it away quickly.

#67

More news... is more news...

MH370 missing Malaysia Airlines plane: Search might be in wrong spot, investigators say

THE right engine of the doomed flight MH370 ran out of fuel, followed by the loss of the left engine, sending the commercial jet spiralling into the Indian Ocean with 239 souls on board.
That’s the conclusion investigators have reached, according to a new report that also reveals the current underwater search may be happening in the wrong spot.

An updated flight path analysis released by the Australian Transport Safety Bureausets out how investigators reached the conclusions they have, in regards to the Boeing 777’s final resting place.

But the report is careful to note that analysis is ongoing and that may result in “changes to the prioritisation and location of search activity”.

http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-up ... 7084277721

But wait... there's more...

Emirates chief Tim Clark reveals suspicions over true fate of missing flight MH370

Here are the highlights from the controversial Der Spiegel interview:

What do you think happened?

Clark: My own view is that probably control was taken of that airplane. It’s anybody’s guess who did what. We need to know who was on the plane in the detail that obviously some people do know. We need to know what was in the hold of the aircraft. And we need to continue to press all those who were involved in the analysis of what happened for more information. I do not subscribe to the view that the Boeing 777, which is one of the most advanced in the world and has the most advanced communication platforms, needs to be improved with the introduction of some kind of additional tracking system. MH 370 should never have been allowed to enter a non-trackable situation.

If that is the case, then why would the pilots spend five hours heading straight towards Antarctica?

Clark: If they did! I am saying that all the “facts” of this particular incident must be challenged and examined with full transparency. We are nowhere near that. There is plenty of information out there, which we need to be far more forthright, transparent and candid about. Every single second of that flight needs to be examined up until it, theoretically, ended up in the Indian Ocean — for which they still haven’t found a trace, not even a seat cushion.

Does that surprise you? The possible crash area west of Australia is vast and the search there only began following considerable delays.

Clark: Our experience tells us that in water incidents, where the aircraft has gone down, there is always something. We have not seen a single thing that suggests categorically that this aircraft is where they say it is, apart from this so-called electronic satellite “handshake,” which I question as well.

At what point on the presumed flight path of MH370 do your doubts begin?

Clark: There hasn’t been one overwater incident in the history of civil aviation — apart from Amelia Earhart in 1939 — that has not been at least five or 10 per cent trackable. But MH 370 has simply disappeared. For me, that raises a degree of suspicion. I’m totally dissatisfied with what has been coming out of all of this.

More: http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-up ... 7086741053

Interesting... neh?

#68

I find it bizarre that people would believe a major commercial flight could disappear without it being intentional.

ScottyMcGee · #69

well now how about that

#70

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/n ... 7138294356

(OT: Who is the line editor for this article, and were they on lunch break or something? Hell's bells.)

MH370: I have flown these jets, here’s what probably didn’t happen

Even now, many months after the horrific disappearance, speculation still runs rampant as to what happened to Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.

Several weeks ago, a newspaper article on the search for MH370 stated that the search area — based on new information — had moved further south and that it was likely someone on board had tampered with the flight computers.

The article also stated that it was possible the aircraft flew for over seven hours on autopilot then ran out of fuel and crashed.

But after an aircraft crashes, masses of debris would be floating around for a long time afterwards. None has been found.

I was a senior captain with a major international airline flying a B777, the type of plane that has now vanished as flight number MH370.

I am bemused by the media coverage given to self proclaimed experts — people who have never flown a modern fly-by-wire computerised glass cockpit airliner and yet offer speculation as to what happened to MH370.

So the uninformed can join the dots and draw their own conclusions but I will point out what most probably did not happen.

The B777 has 80 computers and, except for two engines, nearly every system on board is triplicated to ensure a practically fail safe operation, for example three radios, three radar transponders (linked to Air Traffic Control), three autopilots, three flight management computers (FMS) etc etc.

Failures
And a failure of one will result in transfer, usually automatically, to another. This means for ATC to lose secondary radar contact with MH370 someone had to deactivate all three by manually selecting them to off.

A total electrical failure has also been speculated.The B777 has five generators (two per engine plus APU) and, as a final backup, an automatic deployment Ram Air Turbine ( RAT ) which can supply hydraulic and electrical power to vital systems and still have contact with ATC.

Then there is the hijack theory. On board were two pilots and 14 cabin crew. None of the passengers came under suspicion and the Flight Deck door is reinforced and kept locked. Airlines have security protocols in place to prevent unauthorized access to the Flight Deck.

The flight profile is programmed into the FMS computers before engine start and, with the autopilot(s) engaged, normally immediately after takeoff, the aircraft would have flown itself automatically to its destination unless there was human input to change the flight profile.

There are two lateral modes of flight, Navigation (NAV) and Heading (HDG), the latter normally only used if radar vectors are given by destination ATC to facilitate the instrument approach if required.

The flight crew could leave the Flight Deck after takeoff with the A/P engaged and the aircraft would take itself to the destination — it could not meander around the sky, not when under A/P control.

I might mention that it is not easy to fly a large airliner manually at altitude as they are not designed for it and B777 and Airbus Standard Operating Procedures ( SOP ) call for autopilot engagement at 400 feet after takeoff.

Explsive theories
There is also the explosive decompression theory. Practised regularly by Flight Crew in six-monthly B777 Simulator checks, all the emergency and abnormal scenarios are covered at some stage. Malaysian Airlines has a good reputation with well-trained crew that are proficient at Boeing Memory Emergency Procedures, which includes rapid donning of oxygen masks and selecting immediately the transponder to immiediatel notify ATC and then for rapid descent to a lower level.

The time of useful consciousness at 35,000 feet is 30 seconds — ample time for a well-trained crew to get the aircraft safely down to a lower altitude.

What about fire and smoke in the Flight Deck? Again Boeing has emergency procedures to cover this contingency and the crew would still have contacted ATC.

A bomb on board just doesn’t fit. It’s highly unlikely that the aircraft could then keep flying for several hours as has proved to be the case.

Subsequently, analysis of Malaysian military radar (the event happened in the early morning hours) suggests the aircraft tracked across northern Malaysia then deviated to the northwest before turning south to the southern Indian Ocean.

Is it a coincidence that this track managed to avoid Indonesian, Thai and then Indian military radar?

This analysis also suggested the aircraft climbed to 45,000 for 10 minutes. As a former RAAF fighter pilot who has experienced Hypoxia in high altitude training, it is known that over 35,000 feet, even breathing 100% oxygen, Hyposix can still occur due to the skin tension of lung alveoli (partial pressures) unless oxygen is fed to the mask. Only the Flight Crew masks have this capability.

Passenger drop down masks are designed to provide chemically generated oxygen for 10 minutes to enable the crew to get the aircraft down to a lower altitude in the event of a decompression. If this scenario is accurate then once above 40,000 feet a very rapid loss of consciousness and death would occur to all those behind the Flight Deck door. The symptoms of Hypoxia include euphoria.

Haystacks and needles
The “experts” also stated that the aircraft might have flown slower and therefore flown further - hence more guessing as to the extent of the search area.

Rubbish.

A B777 is not a small aircraft where this can apply. The normal cruise speed of a B777 is M.84 (M is the speed of sound), high speed cruise is M.86, low speed cruise is M.82 and any slower than that, due to the high wing loading of large airliners, would result in an induced drag increase. The difference between M.84 and M.82 is very small. M is the speed of sound.

Three ships with sidescan sonar are now in the search area. It appears that the “haystack’’ has now been found and now we are searching for the ‘‘needle”.

The B777 is a very large aircraft and I personally believe that MH370 is intact and in 6000m of water. If we search long enough it will be found.

In summary the B777 is so automated that if something happened to the Flight Crew, or even if they left the cockpit shortly after takeoff, the aircraft would have flown itself to its destination via the preprogrammed computer Flight Profile.

For it to alter course and fly a different route as alleged would require the deliberate manual intervention of someone with considerable expertise of FMS protocols, which suggests a preplanned intention.

#71

Still pretty certain wizards stole it.

#72

Still no news... so terribly sad for the families and friends of those missing...

MH370 recovery operation: Australian Transport Safety Bureau calls for ‘expressions of interest’

IN what can only be described as an optimistic move, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau has called for expressions of interest in carrying out the recovery operation for MH370.
Nearly four months into the underwater search for the missing aircraft nothing has been found in the southern Indian Ocean.

But the ATSB wants to be prepared to recover any wreckage, in the knowledge it will be a technically challenging and expensive operation.

More: http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-ad ... 7193770706

#73

Finally labelled an "accident"...

MH370: Nine things we will never know about the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight

Malaysian officials have confirmed that although the search for missing flight MH370 will continue, the disappearance of the aircraft has been labelled an “accident”, effectively drawing a line in the sand over speculation.

But for those fascinated by the mysterious disappearance of the plane, this means that there are many things we will – probably – never know.

1. Where is the plane now?
...

2. Why were the plane’s communications systems disabled?
...

3. Why was the plane’s disappearance not spotted immediately?
...

More: http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/mh3 ... ailsignout

#74

With the first anniversary approaching... another theory...

How crazy am I to think I actually know where that Malaysia Airlines plane is?*

*Kinda crazy. (But also maybe right?)

The unsettling oddness was there from the first moment, on March 8, when Malaysia Airlines announced that a plane from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing, Flight 370, had disappeared over the South China Sea in the middle of the night. There had been no bad weather, no distress call, no wreckage, no eyewitness accounts of a fireball in the sky—just a plane that said good-bye to one air-traffic controller and, two minutes later, failed to say hello to the next. And the crash, if it was a crash, got stranger from there.

And yet, once I started looking for evidence, I found it. One of the commenters on my blog had learned that the compartment on 777s called the electronics-and-equipment bay, or E/E bay, can be accessed via a hatch in the front of the first-class cabin.15 If perpetrators got in there, a long shot, they would have access to equipment that could be used to change the BFO value of its satellite transmissions. They could even take over the flight controls.16

I realized that I already had a clue that hijackers had been in the E/E bay. Remember the satcom system disconnected and then rebooted three minutes after the plane left military radar behind. I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out how a person could physically turn the satcom off and on. The only way, apart from turning off half the entire electrical system, would be to go into the E/E bay and pull three particular circuit breakers. It is a maneuver that only a sophisticated operator would know how to execute, and the only reason I could think for wanting to do this was so that Inmarsat would find the records and misinterpret them. They turned on the satcom in order to provide a false trail of bread crumbs leading away from the plane’s true route.

It’s not possible to spoof the BFO data on just any plane. The plane must be of a certain make and model, 17equipped with a certain make and model of satellite-communications equipment,18 and flying a certain kind of route19 in a region covered by a certain kind of Inmarsat satellite.20 If you put all the conditions together, it seemed unlikely that any aircraft would satisfy them. Yet MH370 did.

I imagine everyone who comes up with a new theory, even a complicated one, must experience one particularly delicious moment, like a perfect chord change, when disorder gives way to order. This was that moment for me. Once I threw out the troublesome BFO data, all the inexplicable coincidences and mismatched data went away. The answer became wonderfully simple. The plane must have gone north.

Using the BTO data set alone, I was able to chart the plane’s speed and general path, which happened to fall along national borders.Fig. 21 Flying along borders, a military navigator told me, is a good way to avoid being spotted on radar. A Russian intelligence plane nearly collided with a Swedish airliner while doing it over the Baltic Sea in December. If I was right, it would have wound up in Kazakhstan, just as search officials recognized early on.

Much more of this interesting story is here: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/20 ... heory.html

#75

This doesn't surprise me...

Australia says hunt for missing MH370 jet may be called off soon

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.

No trace has been found of the Boeing 777 aircraft, which disappeared a year ago this week carrying 239 passengers and crew, in what has become one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history.

MH370 vanished from radar screens shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur, bound for Beijing, early on March 8. Investigators believe it was flown thousands of miles off course before eventually crashing into the Indian Ocean.

The search of a rugged 60,000 sq km (23,000 sq mile) patch of sea floor some 1,600 km (1,000 miles) west of the Australian city of Perth, which experts believe is the plane's most likely resting place, will likely be finished by May.

More: http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia ... ailsignout

glux · #76

I thought they called off the search ages ago?

ScottyMcGee · #77

^I think the company who owned the plane stopped the search, but that doesn't mean other people/governments would stop.

#78

[QUOTE="Heroine of the Dragon, post: 1520091, member: 22385"]With the first anniversary approaching... another theory...

How crazy am I to think I actually know where that Malaysia Airlines plane is?*

*Kinda crazy. (But also maybe right?)

Much more of this interesting story is here: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/20 ... heory.html[/QUOTE]

It's an interesting idea, but it would've had to sneak past every airport radar in Central Asia, India's massive Indian Ocean radar base, all of the border security on the very tense Chinese-Indian border, all of the radar at American bases in Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan, and then finally dodged whatever secret security paranoid Russia has on their own border and in Kazakhstan. And they'd have to manage all of that without even a single report on the weather or other aircraft since their communications had been turned off.

I don't know nearly enough about flying a plane to say whether or not that's possible, but it'd be an incredible amount of effort to go to for something that, even after successfully hiding from everything above, could still be completely ruined if a spy satellite or drone just happened to look your way.

ScottyMcGee · #79

Wait this is the same missing plane that had those two passengers with fake passports and some weird simulator in one of the pilot's homes right? There's been so many plane crashes covered in the news since then that I feel like I mix them up. But did they ever look further into those things?

#80

^IIRC, the two passport guys didn't end up on that plane and the simulator was pretty standard for pilot's training/practice.