Missing Malaysia Airlines jet carrying 239 triggers Southeast Asia search

[catterwell]

I think the principle is its better to have an engine ripped off rather than a wing

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa app

Or rather, better to lose an engine than a wing complete with engine.

[Gweiloman]

A lot of posts dis the messenger (the press corps) but I see the press doing an ok job overall. It's an intriguing mystery, and little bits of tangible evidence comes forth. So what if there are conspiracy and other theories floated around. It's like gossip on a global scale. It's human nature to gossip. No one knows for sure, but perhaps one of the speculative scenarios will be proved true. From what I've heard, I stick with my initial gut reaction: The pilot deliberately chose the most hard-to-trace place to ditch the plane, thereby killing himself and all on board. I believe his plan was entwined with his Muslim beliefs - not much different than a prior Egypt Air tragedy out of NYC.

Which Muslim beliefs would this be? About the persecution of Anwar Ibrahim? That would be political belief, not religion based.

One thing that you might not know about Malaysian Muslims is that the majority of them are actually quite liberal and nowhere near as fanatic as some might be led to believe. Particularly the ones who are highly educated (as you would expect the pilot of a big plane to be), they have very western views and lifestyles as well. Probably the only difference between us and them is that they don't consume pork and drink a lot less than us.

[bkkjames]

So is the aussie pm holding another earth shattering press conference this morning to announce they spotted and lost something?

[canman]

If and that's a big if, the debris off of Aus turns out to be that of the missing 777 it raises some interesting issues. One possibility is that there was some sort of fire which incapacitated the crew, the ACAR's, the transponder and for some reason the auto pilot was put on to a southerly heading and continued until the fuel was exhausted.

The other option must take into consideration that given the range the plane could have flown this area is the best place to deliberately crash a plane if you never wanted it found and recovered. That indicates a pre-meditated action. If it was a terrorist act it is unlikely that they would have chosen to "disappear" the plane in this fashion.

[Chicog]

A lot of posts dis the messenger (the press corps) but I see the press doing an ok job overal.

You must be the only one. I've never seen and read so much BS in my life.

It's why the Aussies went public, to stop a leak turning into hundreds of 'Aussies find plane' stories.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[impulse]

Surprised Tomnod isn't releasing images of the current search area.

Or are they and I'm too inept to find them?

BTW, still got fingers crossed that these folks are on the ground somewhere and negotiations for their return are too delicate to release information.

[oldsailor35]

Why is my comment being posted with 'oldsailor35''s username ?!

Because the experts on everything on Thaivisa don't know how to properly quote a post ?

Can't be expert on such a simple thing as well

And some are so expert they even post twice

Got me confused also.

[oldsailor35]

photo of search boat here

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/20/mh370-poor-conditions-hamper-search-debris-indian-ocean?google_editors_picks=true

Think that might be a ship!

[MK1]

Missing Malaysia Airlines plane: Tony Abbott defends decision to go public with news of satellite images

The Age-21/03/2014 (3.01pmAEDT)

Michael Gordon, Lisa Cox

http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/missing-malaysia-airlines-plane-tony-abbott-defends-decision-to-go-public-with-news-of-satellite-images-20140321-357si.html

[Gweiloman]

I still say there is at least some chance that the plane is on the ground in a terrorist friendly country.

I earlier considered the possible consequences a country would suffer if found to have sponsored and/or provided refuge to a hijacked MH370. Even worse if any, or all, of the Chinese nationals were murdered. I couldn't envisage China engaging in dialogue, just a whole lot of pain to come.

I can't envisage a country stupid enough to hijack a planeload of Chinese either. If they have and are discovered, I'll buy a four-pack and watch the fireworks live on Sky. Would certainly be interesting.

You're probably right. Now consider Pakistan. I don't think they are afraid of China. They sure aren't afraid of India.

Pakistan is divided into at least 3 competing groups, counting that no man's land to the North which may be controlled by Al Qaeda.

Pakistan has a good military and ICBM's with nukes capable of hitting China.

I think the more sober leaders in Pakistan would decry such a hijacking, but they really don't control every corner of the country. Sunni, Shia, Al Qaeda, Taliban... Who runs that joint, anyway?

I don't think that there is a country within flyin distance of the M370 that would offer refuge...even Iran/Pak ain't that stupid.

...and in any case that possibility has lapsed already...if they had landed somewhere, we would have known within hours....

I would also discard all mehanical failure issues.

If I had to speculate I would go for the 'hijack by the pilot(s)' theory.

There are a few radical Islamists (malay) in the slammer in Malaysia.

The pilot(s) hijack the plane and threaten to crash it on Petronas towers unless the hadjis are freed.

The govt decides to secretly shoot the plane down...it's full of mostly non-malaysians anyway....and hardly any malays at that.

Then they send everyone on a wild-goose chase all over the place to divert attention.

The End....

Not implausible but highly improbable.

If the plane has been shot down, surely there would be some debris / bodies recovered by now, considering how extensive the search effort has been on both air and sea, on both coasts of Malaysia.

Also, why bother to fly all the way up towards Vietnam airspace instead of just circling around KL? The Petronas towers is only about 60 km from KLIA. Moreover, by circling around KL, the perpetrator would know that the plane will not be shot down as the collateral damage would be just to high. Imagine a 777 crashing anywhere in KL.

[Scott]

Off-topic posts and replies deleted.

[hawker9000]

As i said b4. A fuel dump would have been conducted

Why? That far from the point of origin, and especially if the aircraft was flown for a significant length of time significantly below cruise altitudes (where burn rates are a lot higher), how much remaining fuel could they have had, having progressed that far out over the Indian Ocean, that they'd need to dump any to either land somewhere OR ditch? The aircraft was only going to Beijing - I doubt it had a "full bag" (of gas) to begin with.

[NeverSure]

I still say there is at least some chance that the plane is on the ground in a terrorist friendly country.

I earlier considered the possible consequences a country would suffer if found to have sponsored and/or provided refuge to a hijacked MH370. Even worse if any, or all, of the Chinese nationals were murdered. I couldn't envisage China engaging in dialogue, just a whole lot of pain to come.

I can't envisage a country stupid enough to hijack a planeload of Chinese either. If they have and are discovered, I'll buy a four-pack and watch the fireworks live on Sky. Would certainly be interesting.

You're probably right. Now consider Pakistan. I don't think they are afraid of China. They sure aren't afraid of India.

Pakistan is divided into at least 3 competing groups, counting that no man's land to the North which may be controlled by Al Qaeda.

Pakistan has a good military and ICBM's with nukes capable of hitting China.

I think the more sober leaders in Pakistan would decry such a hijacking, but they really don't control every corner of the country. Sunni, Shia, Al Qaeda, Taliban... Who runs that joint, anyway?

I don't think that there is a country within flyin distance of the M370 that would offer refuge...even Iran/Pak ain't that stupid.

...and in any case that possibility has lapsed already...if they had landed somewhere, we would have known within hours....

Not if there were secret negotiations going on for ransom. Don't forget, this doesn't have to be about the pilots. There was talk of a couple of Iranian passengers with stolen passports and tickets from Thailand.

I would also discard all mehanical failure issues.

If it's true that the plane kept flying for several hours, I agree.

If I had to speculate I would go for the 'hijack by the pilot(s)' theory.

There are a few radical Islamists (malay) in the slammer in Malaysia.

The pilot(s) hijack the plane and threaten to crash it on Petronas towers unless the hadjis are freed.

The govt decides to secretly shoot the plane down...it's full of mostly non-malaysians anyway....and hardly any malays at that.

Then they send everyone on a wild-goose chase all over the place to divert attention.

The End....

Well, unlike some others, we agree that there are radicals in Malaysia too. (As well as in the US, the UK, and so on.)

Your speculation right now is as good as anyone else's. I sure don't know what happened.

Hey, it seems all of the speculation here is a good as that of various governments with their high powered "intelligence."

[chooka]

Abbott quizzed over MH370 parliament announcement

Tony Abbott has been grilled by journalists over his decision to announce in Parliament the discovery of suspected MH370 debris.

Speaking in Papua New Guinea this afternoon, Mr Abbott acknowledged the 24m object found in the southern Indian Ocean yesterday could be just a shipping container

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2014/03/21/15/02/abbott-quizzed-over-mh370-parliament-announcement

[impulse]

Not implausible but highly improbable.

If the plane has been shot down, surely there would be some debris / bodies recovered by now, considering how extensive the search effort has been on both air and sea, on both coasts of Malaysia.

I tend to agree that the shoot down scenario is pretty remote, but I shudder to think of the blowback if, for example, Malaysia shot down a planeload of Chinese citizens, even if they had determined that the plane was hijacked for the purpose of crashing into Petronas Tower. In that case, I'd expect them to point the search effort as far away as possible, while cleaning up all evidence of a missile strike, before they eventually reported the discovery of a debris field.

Even if Beijing wanted to do nothing in retaliation, the nationalist fervor they have fomented recently in China would pretty much force them to respond, lest the CCP look weak in the eyes of their citizenry.

Conspiracy theorists could go wild speculating what kind of 3rd party help they'd be getting to keep such a scenario from going real bad real quick.

I'm not betting on any particular scenario, just (wishful thinking) they're safe on the ground being bargained for as search efforts garner all the attention.

[hawker9000]

The Oz 'find' is a red herring.

The wild-goose chase continues..

Mebbe so. But how do you know? Have you seen or heard something?

[pmugghc]

http://www.roomeetimes.com/wp-content/uploads/165.jpgThe imagery, which was progressively captured by satellites passing over the area, has not yet been released to the media.Credit: http://www.roomeetimes.com/plane-searchers-investigate-debris-found-on-indian-ocean.html

I thought I'd read that the water at that point was extremely deep?

So how come a huge piece of metal would be visible just beneath the surface?

I'm nt saying that the "bits" are nothing to do with the plane, but that image enhancement looks a bit... optimistic...

I agree with your view on the photos. They were a bit disappointing to have made such significant announcements about. Though there does appear to be something surrounded by lots of smaller things floating nearby that are similar in appearance in the different color renderings. Hopefully they have seen so much stuff in the photos that the appearance of these is telling them they are new, man made items floating around. I assume there's not a lot of fairly noticeable items floating around that in that area so far at sea.

On the floating part. They pick aluminum and other metals like that because of the strength to weight qualities. Same for the other materials that go into there, from the seating to the rest of the interior that's attached to the frame. I also think there's a fair amount of honeycomb structure in the wall panels and things. Plus, this plane would have had basically empty fuel tanks which would be very buoyant, barring gaping holes. And any other trapped air pockets would of course help. So as long as there was enough buoyant stuff attached to or trapped inside the sections, it could stay up for some time.

But the wings each have a RR Trent engine strapped to them, weighing in at 5 to 6 tonnes, i am sure that would soon pull a wing to the depths.

I've read on pprune that the engines are designed to be teared off the wings in the event of a water landing.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[Scott]

Off-topic posts deleted.

Discussion of religion is off-topic.

[loongdavid]

The only reason DG (read that as USN) did not report it was that their radar did not see it. Firstly, their approach surveillance radar does not extend that far out and secondly, for intelligence gathering they use satellite imagery which is far more efficient. Surface radar has limitations particularly due to the curvature of the earth, prevailing weather conditions and sun spot activity (there are more reasons that I will not mention). Believe me, if DG had seen and/or identified the missing aircraft they would have said so by now without giving away their intel gathering capacity.

[impulse]

Not to give any credence to this, but it's interesting nonetheless, lady claims to have seen it on the water from the window of her flight. Seems as credible as anything else:

http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2014/03/21/Woman-reports-sighting-jet-Raja-Dalelah-Im-convinced-I-saw-aircraft-near-Andaman-islands/

[Asiantravel]

We're not in the Pacific are we, and you don't know where or when the plane went down, nor do you know what currents and weather have been at work.

Nice one Sherlock.

Watson the debris they spotted is still a very long way from the southernmost point of the southern ark of the search area. you will find there was nothing to get excited about, just because they saw something floating in The Indian Ocean garbage patch

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_Garbage_Patch

I don't believe those two items in the water a long way off Australia are anything to do with the crash................ because I don't believe the plane crashed.

I believe in the theory being put forward by Retired Lt. General. Thomas McInerney

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/03/missing-mh370-thomas-mcinerney-doubles-down-says-plane-landed-in-pakistan-video/

[Asiantravel]

The Oz 'find' is a red herring.

The wild-goose chase continues..

[canuckamuck]

We're not in the Pacific are we, and you don't know where or when the plane went down, nor do you know what currents and weather have been at work.

Nice one Sherlock.

Watson the debris they spotted is still a very long way from the southernmost point of the southern ark of the search area. you will find there was nothing to get excited about, just because they saw something floating in The Indian Ocean garbage patch

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_Garbage_Patch

I don't believe those two items in the water a long way off Australia are anything to do with the crash................ because I don't believe the plane crashed.

I believe in the theory being put forward by Retired Lt. General. Thomas McInerney

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/03/missing-mh370-thomas-mcinerney-doubles-down-says-plane-landed-in-pakistan-video/

Well that is interesting, we will have to wait and see. If it is true, it might be a very long time before there's any proof

[Ulic]

Not buying this "simple explanation" for a couple of reasons.

1/ In the examples noted, the pilots communicated the whole way with air traffic control. In the Swiss Air

tragedy the pilot made a critical mistake and chose to circle Halifax dumping fuel in the ocean instead

of landing heavy with fuel and potentially damaging the landing gear. He could have and should have

landed heavy instead of wasting 20 minutes circling.

2/ If the plane was on fire how did it fly a further 6-7 hours. If there was smoke in the cockpit he would

have declared a mayday or at least pan pan pan. Then he would have asked for permission to dump fuel

and he would have started to dump fuel if he were coming in for an emergency landing. So how was the

plane able to fly for another 6-7 hours.

While I do think this theory has some merit I find it no more compelling than a number of other theories.

[thailampang2012]

If and that's a big if, the debris off of Aus turns out to be that of the missing 777 it raises some interesting issues. One possibility is that there was some sort of fire which incapacitated the crew, the ACAR's, the transponder and for some reason the auto pilot was put on to a southerly heading and continued until the fuel was exhausted.

The other option must take into consideration that given the range the plane could have flown this area is the best place to deliberately crash a plane if you never wanted it found and recovered. That indicates a pre-meditated action. If it was a terrorist act it is unlikely that they would have chosen to "disappear" the plane in this fashion.

I do not think that an autopilot will climb the plane to 45000' to later dive to 7000' and fly on that altitude until getting without fuel....and.hidden from the Diego Garcia 's air base radars, Indonesia, India, and not a phone call from anybody aboard..before or after whatever happened dall that time.

Many questions on the air...and no comments about facts, the US radar plane flying by Kuala Lumpur at the same time than the 777, the 20 high tech Chinese passenger working on a military project for a US firm, and the sight of the plane flying low by the Maldivies islands...in the way to.....

At the end....the easy way out of this mess will be to blame it in a fanatic pilot that decide to make an statement killing his self, his friends, and 230 passengers flying 6 hours to ditch the plane in the ocean close to Australia...

[Credo]

We're not in the Pacific are we, and you don't know where or when the plane went down, nor do you know what currents and weather have been at work.

Nice one Sherlock.

Watson the debris they spotted is still a very long way from the southernmost point of the southern ark of the search area. you will find there was nothing to get excited about, just because they saw something floating in The Indian Ocean garbage patch

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_Garbage_Patch

I don't believe those two items in the water a long way off Australia are anything to do with the crash................ because I don't believe the plane crashed.

I believe in the theory being put forward by Retired Lt. General. Thomas McInerney

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/03/missing-mh370-thomas-mcinerney-doubles-down-says-plane-landed-in-pakistan-video/

I believe that's from Fox News, just in case you were wondering why it isn't being taken very seriously.

[coma]

As i said b4. A fuel dump would have been conducted

Why? That far from the point of origin, and especially if the aircraft was flown for a significant length of time significantly below cruise altitudes (where burn rates are a lot higher), how much remaining fuel could they have had, having progressed that far out over the Indian Ocean, that they'd need to dump any to either land somewhere OR ditch? The aircraft was only going to Beijing - I doubt it had a "full bag" (of gas) to begin with.

You didn't read the attached article did you ? I was playing down the rumor that there was a fire on board.

[Asiantravel]

We're not in the Pacific are we, and you don't know where or when the plane went down, nor do you know what currents and weather have been at work.

Nice one Sherlock.

Watson the debris they spotted is still a very long way from the southernmost point of the southern ark of the search area. you will find there was nothing to get excited about, just because they saw something floating in The Indian Ocean garbage patch

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_Garbage_Patch

I don't believe those two items in the water a long way off Australia are anything to do with the crash................ because I don't believe the plane crashed.

I believe in the theory being put forward by Retired Lt. General. Thomas McInerney

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/03/missing-mh370-thomas-mcinerney-doubles-down-says-plane-landed-in-pakistan-video/

I believe that's from Fox News, just in case you were wondering why it isn't being taken very seriously.

even if it was from Disney Channel I like his straight talk

[coma]

Abbott quizzed over MH370 parliament announcement

Tony Abbott has been grilled by journalists over his decision to announce in Parliament the discovery of suspected MH370 debris.

Speaking in Papua New Guinea this afternoon, Mr Abbott acknowledged the 24m object found in the southern Indian Ocean yesterday could be just a shipping container

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2014/03/21/15/02/abbott-quizzed-over-mh370-parliament-announcement

I think there is nothing wrong with informing one's own citizens first, the results of searches their own military conducts. Whether it be in parliament or via local media conference.

[webfact]

MISSING MH370
It could be container, I don't know : Australia PM

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot said Friday the two objects spotted by satellite in a remote area of the southern Indian Ocean may not be related to the search of the missing Malaysia Airlines MH 370, reported CNN.

It could just be a container that has fallen off a ship," he said during a visit to Papua New Guinea. "We just don’t know."

Abbott was responding to a question from a journalist about whether he had "jumped the gun" Thursday by publicly announcing the discovery of the possible objects in satellite imagery and the decision to send search teams to investigate them.

Meanwhile a Norwegian cargo vessel taking part in the search for possible debris from the missing flight has not uncovered anything overnight, a spokesman for the Norwegian Shipowners’ Association said.

"I have just learned from the ship owner (Hoegh Autolners) that the vessel has not made any significant sighting so far today," Haakon Svane of the Shipowner’s Association told broadcaster NRK early Friday.

Deutsche Presse Agenture quoted Svane as saying that visibility was expected to improve slightly compared to Thursday, Svane added. The Hoegh St Petersburg, which is transporting cars, has a 19-strong Filipino crew. The vessel was asked to take part in the search by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.


-- The Nation 2014-03-21