Malaysia Airlines Flight Goes Missing En Route to China

[Atomic Cow]

Africa would be pushing it.  Remember, aircraft do carry more fuel than they need for the a flight in case they get stuck in a holding pattern, or they encounter unexpected head winds on route which would cause them to burn more fuel.

However, Pakistan, Iran, Bangladesh, Burma, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Yemen, and a host of other countries would be within range.

There are obviously countless old runways all over the region, many dating back to WWII.

All you'd need is a 5,500+ foot runway to land a 777 on.  Taking off again would be another story.

[Oceander]

this, from WSJ, shows the maximum range the aircraft could probably have reached from its last known position given the fuel it left with and its flight characteristics:

Maybe they landed just outside Perth, AUS, for a coupla tinnies?

[Oceander]

Africa would be pushing it.  Remember, aircraft do carry more fuel than they need for the a flight in case they get stuck in a holding pattern, or they encounter unexpected head winds on route which would cause them to burn more fuel.

However, Pakistan, Iran, Bangladesh, Burma, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Yemen, and a host of other countries would be within range.

There are obviously countless old runways all over the region, many dating back to WWII.

All you'd need is a 5,500+ foot runway to land a 777 on.  Taking off again would be another story.

I dunno; all you need is enough room to burn out all the plane's kinetic energy to land it; that'd probably be a lot less than 5,500 ft. 


Pakistan, Iran, and Yemen would be out of range.

[Rapunzel]

That is a lot of ocean to cover.

BTW someone on Kelly File said what I posted last night - the Malacca  Straits are a likely positively no because it is the heaviest traveled place in the world as the oil for Japan and China as well as a lot of other things are shipped through there.  Remember the people I told you I followed on their circumnavigation a few years ago - when they got to the Singapore area it was totally white knuckle travel pretty much all the way to the Suez Canal...  they would post pictures of their radar at night (they traveled at night a lot once they were near Indonesia and Africa beause of potential hijackers)..  It really was a fascinating read.

[Chieftain]

I still say that thrice-damned Karl Rove and those never-to-be-sufficiently-damned Koch Brothers had something to do with this......

 

[Oceander]

This is an old map of the currents in the Indian Ocean:

If this were January, the currents would probably be weakly pushing debris eastward; if this were July, however, the currents would be pulling any debris strongly out further into the Indian Ocean.  Since we're halfway between January and July (more or less), I'm wondering if the debris will be moved more by winds than by currents.

[katzenjammer]

lol  ain't no Ethernet technologies in play out in space!!   

[NavyCanDo]

With the tracking devices being manually shut off my suspicions are narrowing in on the First Officer - Fariq Ab Hamid, a 27-year-old Malaysian.

[mystery-ak]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2579955/US-officials-convinced-two-separate-communications-systems-Malaysian-jet-DELIBERATELY-shut-14-minutes-apart-emerges-aircraft-pinging-FIVE-hours-vanished-flying.html

Officials 'convinced' two communications systems on missing jet were deliberately shut off 14-minutes apart as it emerges aircraft DID keep 'pinging' for hours after vanishing at 35,000 ft

    Malaysian Airways flight MH370 went missing on Saturday morning carrying 239 passengers
    Its last known position was above the South China Sea an hour into flying
    U.S. official said two separate communication systems were shut down 'deliberately' shortly after take-off
    Despite this, tracking signals or 'pings' were sent to British firms satellite from the plane for up to five further hours after it vanished
    These pings show the plane's altitude, height and speed
    According to US officials when the last ping was sent the plane was still flying at 35,000ft over water

[mystery-ak]

http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-deliberately-flown-towards-indias-andaman-islands-military-radar/story-fnizu68q-1226854092765

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 deliberately flown towards India’s Andaman Islands: military radar

[Gazoo]

With the tracking devices being manually shut off my suspicions are narrowing in on the First Officer - Fariq Ab Hamid, a 27-year-old Malaysian.

Motive?

Steal a 777?

Suicide terrorist flight?

I say he (they) whoever stole it (have hostages or shot them all) to some remote location anywhere. They are gassing it up and just when we least suspect it fly in to CONUS and crash into a building?

[Right_in_Virginia]

Just want to say "thank you" for this thread.  I've been following it for days and appreciate all the information you've posted.   

[rustynail]

It has been a Week. At this late date 'what difference does it make'?  Time to move on.

[SlapLeather]

Motive?

Steal a 777?

Suicide terrorist flight?

I say he (they) whoever stole it (have hostages or shot them all) to some remote location anywhere. They are gassing it up and just when we least suspect it fly in to CONUS and crash into a building?

It's worse.  Cheap, effective delivery of EMP or dirty matter.  Almost undetectable and by the time it is detected, way too late.  But hey, global warming/ climate change/ green sheen... yup, it will be mankind's doing. : /

[Gazoo]

It's worse.  Cheap, effective delivery of EMP or dirty matter.  Almost undetectable and by the time it is detected, way too late.  But hey, global warming/ climate change/ green sheen... yup, it will be mankind's doing. : /

Why would they go through all the trouble to steal a plane? They can buy one for a price, you would think off black market? Wow. On second thought this would be easier. Pilot/co pilot being a sleeper agent looks more and more to be possible as each minutes passes.

[Gazoo]

Exclusive: Radar data suggests missing Malaysia plane deliberately flown way off course
http://www.aol.com/article/2014/03/14/exclusive-radar-data-suggests-missing-malaysia-plane-deliberate/20849855/

[EC]

Dad is a bit dubious about the report from Rolls Royce Derby.

He hasn't heard anything about it, and he was lead draughtsman in the Derby plant for 20 years and the Barnoldswick plant for 10 years before that. Every time you fly in a plane with Rolls Royce engines and stop successfully on landing, he gets paid a couple pence - he designed the second generation thrust reverser for the RB 211 and holds shared patent rights to it. He's retired now, but still does consultancy work on the side. Not for the money - he gets bored doing the gardening/cleaning/TV watching thing and likes to keep his hand in. My sis and I encourage him to eat right and live as long as possible - the royalties stop when he dies! 

Anecdote, and maybe they are keeping it quiet, but he contracts to engine optimization at the moment. Those are the ones who would get the telemetry feed.

[Bigun]

Dad is a bit dubious about the report from Rolls Royce Derby.

He hasn't heard anything about it, and he was lead draughtsman in the Derby plant for 20 years and the Barnoldswick plant for 10 years before that. Every time you fly in a plane with Rolls Royce engines and stop successfully on landing, he gets paid a couple pence - he designed the second generation thrust reverser for the RB 211 and holds shared patent rights to it. He's retired now, but still does consultancy work on the side. Not for the money - he gets bored doing the gardening/cleaning/TV watching thing and likes to keep his hand in. My sis and I encourage him to eat right and live as long as possible - the royalties stop when he dies! 

Anecdote, and maybe they are keeping it quiet, but he contracts to engine optimization at the moment. Those are the ones who would get the telemetry feed.

The experts I am in contact with tell me that as long as there is one engine running on that plane the engine itself is sending out maintenance data packets and that those cannot be stopped from inside the aircraft. I believe this data is what they are going on right now.

[DCPatriot]

The experts I am in contact with tell me that as long as there is one engine running on that plane the engine itself is sending out maintenance data packets and that those cannot be stopped from inside the aircraft. I believe this data is what they are going on right now.

So let me get this straight.

The engines had independent, self-contained beacons on them that transmit to an orbiting satellite....the pilots had no control over their continued operation...and they kept sending a signal for up to FOUR hours after transponder was turned off manually.

Sort of like the old style "Lo-jack" that they installed on your vehicle in case it got stolen...even the owner of the car didn't know where the transmitter was placed in the vehicle.

Could the signal continue if the engine was submerged in water?

[EC]

The experts I am in contact with tell me that as long as there is one engine running on that plane the engine itself is sending out maintenance data packets and that those cannot be stopped from inside the aircraft. I believe this data is what they are going on right now.

They send out data even if they are not running, as long as power is supplied to the sensors and transponder. The fan blades are so finely balanced that walking past the intakes will set them turning and it is a way of checking the no-load balance. They have to run perfectly, every time. Even a small nick in a single blade of the 300+ in the compression cycle will throw them out significantly.

[EC]

Could the signal continue if the engine was submerged in water?

The transmitters are not that strong. Over 100 meters down, and you'd have to be on top of the plane to pick them up.

[Gazoo]

From the last link. Just realized the article gets quite detailic. towards the ending. I had thought I read it all.

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Military radar data suggests a Malaysia Airlines jetliner missing for nearly a week was deliberately flown hundreds of miles off course, heightening suspicions of foul play among investigators, sources told Reuters on Friday.

Analysis of the Malaysia data suggests the plane, with 239 people on board, diverted from its intended northeast route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and flew west instead, using airline flight corridors normally employed for routes to the Middle East and Europe, said sources familiar with investigations into the Boeing 777's disappearance.

Two sources said an unidentified aircraft that investigators believe was Flight MH370 was following a route between navigational waypoints when it was last plotted on military radar off the country's northwest coast.

This indicates that it was either being flown by the pilots or someone with knowledge of those waypoints, the sources said.

The last plot on the military radar's tracking suggested the plane was flying toward India's Andaman Islands, a chain of isles between the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, they said.

Waypoints are geographic locations, worked out by calculating longitude and latitude, that help pilots navigate along established air corridors.

A third source familiar with the investigation said inquiries were focusing increasingly on the theory that someone who knew how to fly a plane deliberately diverted the flight.

POSSIBLE SABOTAGE OR HIJACK

"What we can say is we are looking at sabotage, with hijack still on the cards," said that source, a senior Malaysian police official.

All three sources declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media and due to the sensitivity of the investigation.

Officials at Malaysia's Ministry of Transport, the official point of contact for information on the investigation, did not return calls seeking comment.

Malaysian police have previously said they were investigating whether any passengers or crew had personal or psychological problems that might shed light on the mystery, along with the possibility of a hijacking, sabotage or mechanical failure.

As a result of the new evidence, the sources said, multinational search efforts were being stepped up in the Andaman Sea and also the Indian Ocean.

LAST SIGHTING

In one of the most baffling mysteries in modern aviation, no trace of the plane nor any sign of wreckage has been found despite a search by the navies and military aircraft of more than a dozen countries.

The last sighting of the aircraft on civilian radar screens came shortly before 1:30 a.m. Malaysian time last Saturday (1730 GMT Friday), less than an hour after it took off from Kuala Lumpur, as the plane flew northeast across the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand. That put the plane on Malaysia's east coast.

Malaysia's air force chief said on Wednesday an aircraft that could have been the missing plane was plotted on military radar at 2:15 a.m., 200 miles northwest of Penang Island off Malaysia's west coast.

This position marks the limit of Malaysia's military radar in that part of the country, a fourth source familiar with the investigation told Reuters.

When asked about the range of military radar at a news conference on Thursday, Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said it was "a sensitive issue" that he was not going to reveal.

"Even if it doesn't extend beyond that, we can get the co-operation of the neighboring countries," he said.
The fact that the aircraft - if it was MH370 - had lost contact with air traffic control and was invisible to civilian radar suggested someone on board had turned off its communication systems, the first two sources said.

They also gave new details on the direction in which the unidentified aircraft was heading - following aviation corridors identified on maps used by pilots as N571 and P628. These routes are taken by commercial planes flying from Southeast Asia to the Middle East or Europe and can be found in public documents issued by regional aviation authorities.

In a far more detailed description of the military radar plotting than has been publicly revealed, the first two sources said the last confirmed position of MH370 was at 35,000 feet about 90 miles off the east coast of Malaysia, heading towards Vietnam, near a navigational waypoint called "Igari". The time was 1:21 a.m..

The military track suggests it then turned sharply westwards, heading towards a waypoint called "Vampi", northeast of Indonesia's Aceh province and a navigational point used for planes following route N571 to the Middle East.

From there, the plot indicates the plane flew towards a waypoint called "Gival", south of the Thai island of Phuket, and was last plotted heading northwest towards another waypoint called "Igrex", on route P628 that would take it over the Andaman Islands and which carriers use to fly towards Europe.

The time was then 2:15 a.m. That is the same time given by the air force chief on Wednesday, who gave no information on that plane's possible direction.

The sources said Malaysia was requesting raw radar data from neighbours Thailand, Indonesia and India, which has a naval base in the Andaman Islands.

http://www.aol.com/article/2014/03/14/exclusive-radar-data-suggests-missing-malaysia-plane-deliberate/20849855/

[Oceander]

So let me get this straight.

The engines had independent, self-contained beacons on them that transmit to an orbiting satellite....the pilots had no control over their continued operation...and they kept sending a signal for up to FOUR hours after transponder was turned off manually.

Sort of like the old style "Lo-jack" that they installed on your vehicle in case it got stolen...even the owner of the car didn't know where the transmitter was placed in the vehicle.

Could the signal continue if the engine was submerged in water?

You basically have it straight.  Just guessing here, but so long as the transponder itself can function, it would probably continue to "ping" the satellites even if the engine was submerged in water, so long as the transponder hasn't received a proper shutdown sequence from the aircraft itself.

It seems that after this, none of the transponders or other communications systems should be accessible from within the aircraft and they should all have independent power sources that also cannot be disconnected from within the aircraft.

[Bigun]

Could the signal continue if the engine was submerged in water?

My experience tells me that mixing salt water and electronics spells the death of the electronics almost instantly. Even if the transmitter itself is housed to survive that environment the feeds to it will not be.

I suspect the pings stopped pretty quickly after impact.

[DCPatriot]

My experience tells me that mixing salt water and electronics spells the death of the electronics almost instantly. Even if the transmitter itself is housed survive that environment the feeds to it will not be.

I suspect the pings stopped pretty quickly after impact.

Hmmm....one would think that considering the amount of hours over open water, that they would construct a water proof/air-tight environment on the equipment.