Malaysia Airlines Flight Goes Missing En Route to China

[DCPatriot]

Drudge headline reads "PAKISTAN"

They have nukes.  They have materials for 'dirty bombs'.

Now they have a vehicle to deliver it anyplace when the time suits them.

[Chieftain]

Nope. 777's only have side doors. Each door (or pair of doors during in flight rest) is monitored by at least one member of the crew.

No need to throw any bodies out as long as those bodies are all incapacitated.  If the cabin oxygen system were compromised and the cabin vented to atmosphere during a high climb, people would be overcome by hypoxia very quickly and it would not take long for it to be fatal.  If they are all safely buckled into their seats then they are no longer a threat and there is no need to do anything further with them.

Why leave a trail of breadcrumbs??

[Bigun]

No worries brother. I too forgot that not only do slide rafts float by their very nature, but an explosion would force at least one door (weakest point) and automatically deploy and inflate the slide. The instant it hits water, the beacon would start screaming and those things can be picked up from orbit.

Strange how something that bsic can be forgotten so easily!

Isn't it though! But that seems to be what ALWAYS gets overlooked doesn't it?

[DCPatriot]

Judge Jeanine (yum) is finishing a two-hour special on Flight 370.

Fascinating compilation of pilots...instructors...an array of experts.

Some think the motive could be larceny/greed.   They're wondering what the jet's cargo was.

The 'pings' that continued after the contact was lost is not guaranteed to be flight 370.

[Rapunzel]

Judge Jeanine (yum) is finishing a two-hour special on Flight 370.

Fascinating compilation of pilots...instructors...an array of experts.

Some think the motive could be larceny/greed.   They're wondering what the jet's cargo was.

The 'pings' that continued after the contact was lost is not guaranteed to be flight 370.

One thing in cargo was the lithium batteries which are illegal for planes in the USA.  Isn't that what brought down that Florida plane a month before TWA 800?

[Oceander]

Why is it in this day and age, a black box/transmitter cannot be sending the same information in real time to a Wifi or other eavesdropping device?

Shame on them....

Wi-fi wouldn't work because that's a strictly local technology with a very limited range.  Communications have to go over radio (VHF and UHF) or satellite, and the bandwidth on both of those is a lot more precious than on a wi-fi network.

[Atomic Cow]

One thing in cargo was the lithium batteries which are illegal for planes in the USA.  Isn't that what brought down that Florida plane a month before TWA 800?

ValuJet 592 was illegally loaded oxygen generators, the device which makes the OK for the passenger emergency oxygen system on some aircraft.  Other aircraft have O2 tanks on board instead.

[Rapunzel]

ValuJet 592 was illegally loaded oxygen generators, the device which makes the OK for the passenger emergency oxygen system on some aircraft.  Other aircraft have O2 tanks on board instead.

Thank you, I'm eating dinner and was too lazy to look it up.

[Gazoo]

Malaysia Airline MH370: 9/11-style terror allegations resurface in case of lost plane

Possible plot investigated after Al-Qaeda supergrass told court that four or five Malaysian men planned a passenger airliner hijack


Left: Saajid Muhammad Badat. Right: A woman writes on a board of messages and well-wishes dedicated to people involved with the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner MH370 Photo: PA/AP

By Robert Mendick, Robert Verkaik in London, Dean Nelson in Kuala Lumpur and Malcolm Moore in Beijing8:54PM GMT 15 Mar 2014
Evidence of a plot by Malaysian Islamists to hijack a passenger jet in a 9/11-style attack is being investigated in connection with the disappearance of Flight MH370

An al-Qaeda supergrass told a court last week that four to five Malaysian men had been planning to take control of a plane, using a bomb hidden in a shoe to blow open the cockpit door.

Security experts said the evidence from a convicted British terrorist was “credible”. The supergrass said that he had met the Malaysian jihadists – one of whom was a pilot – in Afghanistan and given them a shoe bomb to use to take control of an aircraft.

A British security source said: “These spectaculars take a long time in the planning.”
The possibility of such a plot, hatched by the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York, was bolstered by an admission by Najib Razak, Malaysia’s prime minister, that the Boeing 777’s communications systems had been deliberately switched off “by someone on the plane”.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10700652/Malaysia-Airline-MH370-911-style-terror-allegations-resurface-in-case-of-lost-plane.html

[EC]

An al-Qaeda supergrass told a court last week that four to five Malaysian men had been planning to take control of a plane, using a bomb hidden in a shoe to blow open the cockpit door.

What? Talk about frigging dumb. You don't need a bomb to open the cockpit door, it's an electronic lock. You just need the over ride code - which is known to every pilot, flight attendant, engineer, caterer, and cleaner employed by the airline. If you can't get that code, you are not even trying. Hell, I know the lock codes for the biggest airline in the world. It's actually written in the training manuals.

[xyno]

3 pieces of evidence point to jet's takeover
Mar 16th 2014 6:18AM

MALAYSIA

There are three pieces of evidence that aviation safety experts say make it clear the missing Malaysia Airlines jet was taken over by someone who was knowledgeable about how the plane worked.

TRANSPONDER

One clue is that the plane's transponder - a signal system that identifies the plane to radar - was shut off about an hour into the flight.

In order to do that, someone in the cockpit would have to turn a knob with multiple selections to the off position while pressing down at the same time, said John Goglia, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board. That's something a pilot would know how to do, but it could also be learned by someone who researched the plane on the Internet, he said.

ACARS

Another clue is that part of the Boeing 777's Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) was shut off.

The system, which has two parts, is used to send short messages via a satellite or VHF radio to the airline's home base. The information part of the system was shut down, but not the transmission part. In most planes, the information part of the system can be shut down by hitting cockpit switches in sequence in order to get to a computer screen where an option must be selected using a keypad, said Goglia, an expert on aircraft maintenance.

That's also something a pilot would know how to do, but that could also be discovered through research, he said.

But to turn off the other part of the ACARS, it would be necessary to go to an electronics bay beneath the cockpit. That's something a pilot wouldn't normally know how to do, Goglia said, and it wasn't done in the case of the Malaysia plane. Thus, the ACARS transmitter continued to send out blips that were recorded by the Inmarsat satellite once an hour for four to five hours after the transponder was turned off. The blips don't contain any messages or data, but the satellite can tell in a very broad way what region the blips are coming from and adjusts the angle of its antenna to be ready to receive message in case the ACARS sends them. Investigators are now trying to use data from the satellite to identify the region where the plane was when its last blip was sent.

GUIDED FLIGHT

The third indication is that that after the transponder was turned off and civilian radar lost track of the plane, Malaysian military radar was able to continue to track the plane as it turned west.

The plane was then tracked along a known flight route across the peninsula until it was several hundred miles (kilometers) offshore and beyond the range of military radar. Airliners normally fly from waypoint to waypoint where they can be seen by air traffic controllers who space them out so they don't collide. These lanes in the sky aren't straight lines. In order to follow that course, someone had to be guiding the plane, Goglia said.

Goglia said he is very skeptical of reports the plane was flying erratically while it was being tracked by military radar, including steep ascents to very high altitudes and then sudden, rapid descents. Without a transponder signal, the ability to track planes isn't reliable at very high altitudes or with sudden shifts in altitude, he said.

http://www.aol.com/article/2014/03/16/3-pieces-of-evidence-point-to-jets-takeover/20850854/?ncid=webmail1#!slide=2487288

[xyno]

Among the obligatory photos of guys in uniform pointing at maps, there are also a few informative ones as well.

[Oceander]

What? Talk about frigging dumb. You don't need a bomb to open the cockpit door, it's an electronic lock. You just need the over ride code - which is known to every pilot, flight attendant, engineer, caterer, and cleaner employed by the airline. If you can't get that code, you are not even trying. Hell, I know the lock codes for the biggest airline in the world. It's actually written in the training manuals.

wouldn't a bomb used for that purpose have a rather high risk of (a) damaging the flight controls/instruments in the cockpit, and/or (b) fatally weakening the aircraft's structure?

[EC]

wouldn't a bomb used for that purpose have a rather high risk of (a) damaging the flight controls/instruments in the cockpit, and/or (b) fatally weakening the aircraft's structure?

On a triple 7? It would not be very good for the environmental controls, which are right next to the cockpit door on the outside of the cockpit, in the CSD's cubby. Same place as the inflight entertainment systems. Also, there is no where to take cover while it goes off - it's pretty much a straight line down the left aisle, and the little curtains are not going to provide much protection.
In terms of the actual flight controls, nothing major would be damaged, they are routed along the fuselage, not usually under the floor. The door itself, at least on the aircraft the wife works on, wouldn't even budge. Vertical locking bars, not horizontal. Set off a small explosive and you have everyone awake, pissed off at the sudden loss of the inflight movie and a very pissed off pilot or two, ears ringing, who are still safely locked inside the cockpit with both an axe and a flare pistol immediately to hand.

[olde north church]

Among the obligatory photos of guys in uniform pointing at maps, there are also a few informative ones as well.

one was extremely noticable and quickly marked it wasn't a "Western" air force.

[Chieftain]

What? Talk about frigging dumb. You don't need a bomb to open the cockpit door, it's an electronic lock. You just need the over ride code - which is known to every pilot, flight attendant, engineer, caterer, and cleaner employed by the airline. If you can't get that code, you are not even trying. Hell, I know the lock codes for the biggest airline in the world. It's actually written in the training manuals.

I was under the impression that since 9/11 there were other reinforcements and deadbolts added to ensure the cockpit could not be easily breached in a hijacking.  Am I mistaken about that??

[EC]

I was under the impression that since 9/11 there were other reinforcements and deadbolts added to ensure the cockpit could not be easily breached in a hijacking.  Am I mistaken about that??

Electronic lock. Camera, showing who is outside. Microphones in the fore galley in the 777, so the pilots can hear what is going on as needed. Vertical locking bars, as well as the catch and hinge pins. The door and bulkhead has been reinforced (kevlar and mesh, they still have to worry about weight).

Want to get in through all that? Type a number four times on the keypad and press star. This is, of course, assuming the flight deck have not negated the entire security system by tying a sock across the edge of the door, to make it more convenient for the crew checks and nipping to the loo.

[Oceander]

any thoughts on whether it landed in burma or crashed in the himalayas?

[EC]

At the moment - I am going for landed, not crashed.

[Chieftain]

any thoughts on whether it landed in burma or crashed in the himalayas?

How the hell could they do either and evade the many different military surveillance radars, India in particular??  You would think that someone would have seen an unidentified radar contact and pushed the alarm button.  I cannot see how you fly an airliner that far without someone taking notice.

[Rapunzel]

How the hell could they do either and evade the many different military surveillance radars, India in particular??  You would think that someone would have seen an unidentified radar contact and pushed the alarm button.  I cannot see how you fly an airliner that far without someone taking notice.

Which is the reason the USA is now going on the theory the plane flew out into the Indian Ocean toward Australia and they possible crashed it into the deepest part of the ocean... they are moving assets toward Australia.

[NavyCanDo]

Which is the reason the USA is now going on the theory the plane flew out into the Indian Ocean toward Australia and they possible crashed it into the deepest part of the ocean... they are moving assets toward Australia.

I still lean on the theory that it eventually crashed like this theory claims. There are millions of square miles of ocean to search and a lot of time was spent searching in the wrong area. But what puzzles me is if the intension was to crash it and kill everyone on board why not just go nose in and crash it? Why all the evasive maneuvers?    A very strange story indeed, no matter how this eventually turns out.

[katzenjammer]

Which is the reason the USA is now going on the theory the plane flew out into the Indian Ocean toward Australia and they possible crashed it into the deepest part of the ocean... they are moving assets toward Australia.

Wow!  That's quite a shift from yesterday, I hadn't been tuned in today, thanks for the info on that.

[Atomic Cow]

I still lean on the theory that it eventually crashed like this theory claims. There are millions of square miles of ocean to search and a lot of time was spent searching in the wrong area. But what puzzles me is if the intension was to crash it and kill everyone on board why not just go nose in and crash it? Why all the evasive maneuvers?    A very strange story indeed, no matter how this eventually turns out.

If it did crash, it might very well have been something as simple as giving a big "FU" to Malaysia.  If it had crashed into the South China Sea, it would have been found in no time.  Flying it out over the south Indian Ocean before crashing it means it might never be found and it is a big black eye to Malaysia.

[Rapunzel]

Wow!  That's quite a shift from yesterday, I hadn't been tuned in today, thanks for the info on that.

They are discussing it with Bob Scales right now on Fox...

The Aussies are working with us and are repositioning some of their naval assets in the region.. the Aussies are quiet, but they are working with the USA on this.  There is also a lot of runways in that area and a large area not covered by radar (in the Indian Ocean).. Scales thinks this is going to take years to solve.