Disappearance of Malaysian jet appears 'deliberate': PM

[goatfarmer]

Interesting comparison between the Air France crash and the current mystery.

"Sometimes we will just have to wait if we want trustworthy information'

[hansgruber]

Reports say the older pilot is passionate Anwar Ibrahim supporter and even attended the trial when Anwar was sentenced to 5 years prison.

Political revenge makes more sense than anything else that's being thrown around.

http://m.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/world/malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-diverted-by-deliberate-action-pilots-under-scrutiny-amid-hijack-fears/story-fni0xs63-1226855986042

[Lite Beer]

Thailand suspends search for missing MH370

BANGKOK, 16 March 2014 (NNT) – Thailand has suspended its operation searching for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 that has gone missing since March 8th, pending new assistance requests from Malaysian.

The Royal Thai Navy, according to Navy spokesperson Karn Dee-ubon, has stopped searching for the missing jet with 239 people on board. The decision followed Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak's announcement confirming that communications of the missing aircraft were disabled and its movements were consistent with a deliberate act by someone who turned the jet back across the Malaysian coast.

The spokesperson, however, assured that four patrol vessels will be on stand-by and are ready to continue searching for the missing plane if asked by the Malaysian government.

The Thai Navy joined search operation on Monday (March 10), deploying two patrol planes, a patrol vessel, and a helicopter, but the results have rather been disappointing.

Prime Minister Najib made an official announcement on Saturday, saying the movements of the plane were consistent with deliberate actions by someone on the plane, but stopped short of confirming speculations of the plane being hijacked, however.

-- NNT 2014-03-16

[whoisyourdaddy]

Two fake or stolen passports.

Two Iranian Asylum seekers.

A recipe for trouble?

The one guy was 19 and he wanted to meet his mom in Germany.

Pretty sure he knew all about how to switch off transponders and knowing the difference between Leerdamer and Gouda cheese.

Why don't you go and Google first, as relatives, friends of the missing people might read that too.

So according to your logic , sweet little , innocent mama's boy, flew into Thailand ? Managed to find way to purchase stolen passport? Not only stolen but have it forged to input his photo? Then not only forged , but expertly forged to be able to leave Thailand , enter Malaysia and leave Malaysia without so much as lifting an eye brow ?? And all this because he wanted to see his mum???

Oh did I mention those passports ain't cheap??

So again to summarize . Someone comes to Thailand , finds connections to get real passport, have it forged , pay for it, and all of these just so that he can see his mum ??......

I am almost 40 years old, spent 1/3 of it in Thailand , and I would not even know where to start to look for stolen or fake passports, not would I even have a clue where to find gangs who can forge passports. I am certain most of the population would not have a clue and yet the "innocent" knew and done it all in a foreign country.

It sure does help to think occasionally before posting

He was most likely being trafficked into Europe. The passport was purchased by traffickers on his behalf. He most likely entered Malaysia on his own passport, not the stolen one. The stolen one was used at the airport as he was leaving the country. Most countries don't care too much who is leaving and they don't care too much who is transiting, but they do care about who is entering.

The human trafficking networks are quite sophisticated. They often have immigration officials on the take to make sure that the person isn't stopped.

The Malaysians should be able to find out when, how and the name, passport used when they entered Malaysia. I believe they interviewed a friend of one of them where they had stayed the night before the flight.

It doesn't eliminate the need to investigate them, but terrorists would be very silly to use stolen passports. It's too risky and terrorists usually require a fair amount of preparation.

If such sophisticated network was involved, they would not be putting 2 people on the same flight as it could be risky, not to mention the need to go through 3 destinations in Asia

Human trafficking is no different to drug trafficking, never have 2 mules on the same flight, unless willing to sacrifice one.

Why would terrorist be silly to use stolen passports? Suicide bombers do not care, but hijackers are sure not planning to get caught or go to jail

[goatfarmer]

Reports say the older pilot is passionate Anwar Ibrahim supporter and even attended the trial when Anwar was sentenced to 5 years prison.

Political revenge makes more sense than anything else that's being thrown around.

http://m.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/world/malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-diverted-by-deliberate-action-pilots-under-scrutiny-amid-hijack-fears/story-fni0xs63-1226855986042

Does it seem likely that a supporter of Ibrahim would endanger or sacrifice the lives of 230 people who have nothing to do with Malaysian politics? Would such terror tactics endear the Malaysian public and the world to Ibrahim?

If so, where is the political testament? How does one exact revenge by simply making a plane disappear (assuming that the whereabouts of the plane are unknown)?

[hansgruber]

Reports say the older pilot is passionate Anwar Ibrahim supporter and even attended the trial when Anwar was sentenced to 5 years prison.

Political revenge makes more sense than anything else that's being thrown around.

http://m.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/world/malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-diverted-by-deliberate-action-pilots-under-scrutiny-amid-hijack-fears/story-fni0xs63-1226855986042

Does it seem likely that a supporter of Ibrahim would endanger or sacrifice the lives of 230 people who have nothing to do with Malaysian politics? Would such terror tactics endear the Malaysian public and the world to Ibrahim?

If so, where is the political testament? How does one exact revenge by simply making a plane disappear (assuming that the whereabouts of the plane are unknown)?

People are very passionate when it comes to politics. People die for it as we know even in this country.

" Hours before Flight MH370 left Kuala Lumpur, the pilot is said to have attended a controversial trial in which Ibrahim - who has been harassed and jailed on successive charges of homosexuality and sodomy - was jailed for five years.

Police sources say Captain Shah was a political activist and fear that the court decision left him profoundly upset."

It's motive and they don't have many other plausible scenarios that make sense as this theory does.

Just an opinion.

[keemapoot]

Reports say the older pilot is passionate Anwar Ibrahim supporter and even attended the trial when Anwar was sentenced to 5 years prison.

Political revenge makes more sense than anything else that's being thrown around.

http://m.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/world/malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-diverted-by-deliberate-action-pilots-under-scrutiny-amid-hijack-fears/story-fni0xs63-1226855986042

Does it seem likely that a supporter of Ibrahim would endanger or sacrifice the lives of 230 people who have nothing to do with Malaysian politics? Would such terror tactics endear the Malaysian public and the world to Ibrahim?

If so, where is the political testament? How does one exact revenge by simply making a plane disappear (assuming that the whereabouts of the plane are unknown)?

People are very passionate when it comes to politics. People die for it as we know even in this country.

" Hours before Flight MH370 left Kuala Lumpur, the pilot is said to have attended a controversial trial in which Ibrahim - who has been harassed and jailed on successive charges of homosexuality and sodomy - was jailed for five years.

Police sources say Captain Shah was a political activist and fear that the court decision left him profoundly upset."

It's motive and they don't have many other plausible scenarios that make sense as this theory does.

Just an opinion.

Such politics would be a remote possibility I would think, given that this "pirating" or hijacking, if that's what it was, would have taken intensive and long planning. The Captain's actions if precipitated by the court decision would have been more of an act in the passion of the moment.

[bander]

"The only known blot on co-pilot Fariq's character appears to be the time 2011 when he invited two South African women into the cockpit when he and another officer flew a jet from Thailand to Malaysia."

Who did he invite into the cockpit on this flight? Osama Bin Laden and his friends?

Fariq inviting random passengers to a sightseeing tour in the cockpit is clearly a safety risk and a violation on flight procedures.

Unacceptable behavior from a co-pilot and they should have fired him immediately after this incident, shame in you Malaysia Airways

[chrisinth]

What amazes me is the ability to turn off the tracking devices, Why?

Not sure if they meant physically throwing a switch to turn them off or unwiring them. One would also assume there would be a method to disable for maintenance.

Regardless, if this were the case then someone would certainly need the ability to read schematics and know their way round a 777's system layouts.

[Marvo]

"Neither that team (the Malaysian air force base at Butterworth) nor the crews at two other radar installations at Kota Bharu, closer to where the airliner last had contact with the ground, designated the blip as an unknown intruder warranting attention, the person said. The aircraft proceeded to fly across the country and out to sea without anyone on watch telling a superior and alerting the national defense command near Kuala Lumpur, even though the radar contact’s flight path did not correspond to any filed flight plan. As a result, combat aircraft never scrambled to investigate."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/world/asia/series-of-errors-by-malaysia-mounts-complicating-the-task-of-finding-flight-370.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Difficult to imagine incompetence to such a degree. How could a hijacker have planned on such multiple oversight?

Sounds like the Malaysian Air Force / National Defence Command were "got at" in the same way as NORAD were "prevented" from doing their job on 9/11. Hauntingly similar circumstances! The can of worms is being opened

[Ulysses G.]

"The only known blot on co-pilot Fariq's character appears to be the time 2011 when he invited two South African women into the cockpit when he and another officer flew a jet from Thailand to Malaysia."

Who did he invite into the cockpit on this flight? Osama Bin Laden and his friends?

Fariq inviting random passengers to a sightseeing tour in the cockpit is clearly a safety risk and a violation on flight procedures.

Unacceptable behavior from a co-pilot and they should have fired him immediately after this incident, shame in you Malaysia Airways

I don't think that two, teenage, white girls are much of a security risk. It might violate his Islamic religious ethics somehow though.

[chrisinth]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

Quote

I love the dailymail alt=biggrin.png width=20 height=20>

Latest -

Doomed airliner pilot was political fanatic

Link to dailymail....Doomed-airliner-pilot-political-fanatic............html

The idea that the sudden climb to 45kft was to knock out the passengers seems plausible. At such low air pressure at that height I dont know even of the emergency drop down O2 would help.

Curiouser and curiouser

At this point, i'm believing the daily mail's timeline and reasoning.. alt=blink.png width=20 height=20>

Ya, i know, the dailymail.......

Thats when you KNOW you're desperate for info! alt=w00t.gif width=18 height=20>

Perhaps I am wrong, but if the pressurized (note this word) hull of the aircraft remained intact, then there would be no difference in cabin pressure.

If the hull was breached, at 35K or 45K, that would be another story................

My understanding of cabin pressure anyway.

[JDGRUEN]

What puzzles me is that none of the 200+ passengers on the 'plane appear to have called, Emailed or used any readily available Social Media to contact the outside world and let them know what was happening on the aircraft; OK many of the Chinese passengers may not have been technologically "aware" but, just as an example, there were 20 very skilled Computer Hardware designers on board - all of whom must surely have had access to their own iPhones or whatever.

It would be impossible for Hijackers to impound all such devices - and if it was the Flight Crew who took over the aircraft after locking themselves in the Flight Deck then they certainly could not have stopped passengers communicating with the outside world.

Patrick

I am sure those cell towers in the sea would have picked up the phone signal.

[chiang mai]

If someone were to go to the trouble of hijacking an aircraft I feel certain they would not overlook the mobile phone aspect and would almost certainly employee signal blocking technology, cheap and readily available.

[Tywais]

If someone were to go to the trouble of hijacking an aircraft I feel certain they would not overlook the mobile phone aspect and would almost certainly employee signal blocking technology, cheap and readily available.

There are two reasons why the idea of mobile contact at altitude isn't likely. First is that above 8000 feet there is extremely low likely hood of reaching a tower due to the horizontal polarization of the signal, that is the signal predominately is outward and not upward. 2nd, the speed the plane is traveling would prevent a lock for any length of time as it will fly past a cell point faster than cell point transition can be done.

[Joe Bloggs]

If the ground based radar is on a tower 20 metres high and the plane is flying at a height of 200 metres the radar horizon calculates to be 76 kilometres or less than 50 miles. The optical horizon is rather less because light waves do not have the advantage of the 4/3rds Earth diameter effect. Roughly speaking in just a few minutes the plane will be out of civilian radar detection range. Flying lower still will again reduce the detection range

Allegedly the US has something nicknamed "Black Radar". AFAIK it is some kind of network of satellites that was originally built to track shipments of illicit drugs.

As a blue water yachtsman once said "Never ever put in to Tangier or anywhere in Morocco! If you do your boat will be tracked by the CIA for evermore."

Now as drug smuggling boats can allegedly be tracked in spite of trying to be to be as covert as possible, finding that plane should be a snip!

Incidentally several days ago I suggested that the plane might be in a scrapyard somewhere in Malacca because that is what they do! It now looks as if my hunch was partly correct. As to the flight simulator, that could be the smoking gun!

[bendejo]

If in the air for more than an hour, it would have had to enter another country's air space. Don't these countries have a system to detect aircraft entering their perimeter?

One supposition is it headed to the Indian Ocean flying over the isthmus, wouldn't the Thai's have noticed?

[Lite Beer]

Thai Navy resumes search for missing MH370
By English News

BANGKOK, March 16 - The Royal Thai Navy today resumed search operations for the missing Malaysian jetliner flight MH370 as requested by the Malaysian government.

Admiral Thaweewut Pongpipat, the navy chief of staff, said the navy operation centre has instructed its personnel to resume searching for the Boeing 777-200 aircraft that went missing more than a week ago, after they announced the suspension of the search yesterday.

The Saturday's decision followed the remarks of the Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak that the aircraft's disappearance was apparently deliberate and that the plane could have ended up as far as Kazakhstan or into the southern reaches of the Indian Ocean.

However, after learning that the Thai navy intended to cease search operations, ADM Thaweewut said, the Malaysian government asked the Thai navy to continue the mission which will remain in Andaman Sea.

ADM Thaweewut said today the navy's Dornier DO 228 aircraft will scan the Andaman Sea 50 miles off the coastline of Thailand's Phuket Island.

Super Lynx helicopters may also be used to support operations which focus on aerial search as it covers more area.

HTMS Pattani will be dispatched to the suspected areas if any traces or debris are found, according to the admiral, adding that HTMS Khamronsin of the Navy Region 3 is also on standby. (MCOT online news)

-- TNA 2014-03-16

[cmiuc]

CNN gives some good info too... and videos too...

give a read...

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/16/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-questions/

then as there are "UFO's and Big Foots", since some people are saying it went up to 45,000 ft... maybe a UFO abducted it... saying "come to papa" ...

or maybe the space station will see it soon... maybe the first aiplane to get into lower orbit...as many want to have in the future.

Let's hope... though for the safety of the people on board..

[3NUMBAS]

as an expert said on a TV prog even if they find the black box its unlikely to yield much in the way of voice recordings in the cockpit as its on a 2 hour loop and if their was a fracas in the cockpit and it was flying for a further 5-7 hours any arguments and fights would have been overwritten by a silent madman at the controls ,or maybe gibbering to himself

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/16/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/

^ looks like the crew are under suspicion ^

[chiang mai]

as an expert said on a TV prog even if they find the black box its unlikely to yield much in the way of voice recordings in the cockpit as its on a 2 hour loop and if their was a fracas in the cockpit and it was flying for a further 5-7 hours any arguments and fights would have been overwritten by a silent madman at the controls ,or maybe gibbering to himself

A bit like this thread then!

[Thai at Heart]

Two fake or stolen passports.

Two Iranian Asylum seekers.

A recipe for trouble?

The one guy was 19 and he wanted to meet his mom in Germany.

Pretty sure he knew all about how to switch off transponders and knowing the difference between Leerdamer and Gouda cheese.

Why don't you go and Google first, as relatives, friends of the missing people might read that too.

So according to your logic , sweet little , innocent mama's boy, flew into Thailand ? Managed to find way to purchase stolen passport? Not only stolen but have it forged to input his photo? Then not only forged , but expertly forged to be able to leave Thailand , enter Malaysia and leave Malaysia without so much as lifting an eye brow ?? And all this because he wanted to see his mum???

Oh did I mention those passports ain't cheap??

So again to summarize . Someone comes to Thailand , finds connections to get real passport, have it forged , pay for it, and all of these just so that he can see his mum ??......

I am almost 40 years old, spent 1/3 of it in Thailand , and I would not even know where to start to look for stolen or fake passports, not would I even have a clue where to find gangs who can forge passports. I am certain most of the population would not have a clue and yet the "innocent" knew and done it all in a foreign country.

It sure does help to think occasionally before posting

He was most likely being trafficked into Europe. The passport was purchased by traffickers on his behalf. He most likely entered Malaysia on his own passport, not the stolen one. The stolen one was used at the airport as he was leaving the country. Most countries don't care too much who is leaving and they don't care too much who is transiting, but they do care about who is entering.

The human trafficking networks are quite sophisticated. They often have immigration officials on the take to make sure that the person isn't stopped.

The Malaysians should be able to find out when, how and the name, passport used when they entered Malaysia. I believe they interviewed a friend of one of them where they had stayed the night before the flight.

It doesn't eliminate the need to investigate them, but terrorists would be very silly to use stolen passports. It's too risky and terrorists usually require a fair amount of preparation.

Last week, the plane was most likely ditched off the Malaysian coast. I think all "nice" assumptions about peoples motivation are largely off the table.

They've just found hundreds of Uighurs in thailand and a uighur separatist group has just murdered 30 chinese nationals in an attack in China.

Let's not second guess why any fundamentalist terrorist group may or.may not do anything. Normal people don't do nutty things like nicking aeroplanes, since they aren't nutty. The only people on that aeroplane that shouldn't have been there were the smuggled potential terrorists. Missus Wong from Shenzen on a shopping trip to KL didn't do thism

[davidstipek]

Can anyone elaberate on the following subject to verify if correct:

Is not the Boeing 777-200ER equipt with the FBW System? I believe it is, for those of you who don't understand, this is a fly-by-wire system that lets the aircraft fly as it was a Drone. By some external source.

Does not the 777-ER have the FBW system installed?

Seems no one want to touch this subject....

Also in regards to Cell Phone issue...

It is possible to install a Blocker to eliminte any outbound as well as inbound comunication. This would be more inline here as not to raise any suspisions from passengers from trying to collect. (I am sure that it would be possible if tried to collect all cell devices. Passengers further back in plane would try to hide some.... Think about this...) The possibility of haveing a One click to totally disable looks as a more creditable option.

"Click! There done... don't have to worry... all disabled!" "Good Night......!"

[siampolee]

MH370: fears of 9/11-style Islamic terror plot

The link above will take you to today's edition of the Daily Telegraph in the U.K..

Indeed a chilling read with too many reminders of the past events connected to international terrorism by assorted religious fanatics.

Time is not important to these terrorists, however a long lull in matters indeed raises and compounds the fear factor when terror strikes again.

Going by comments coming from the Malaysian political leadership and now this particular article the more one is led to believe that those involved in the management of the crisis limitation concerning this matter have in reality been concealing the truth from the rest of the world ,

Why, and to what ends we must ask should this exercise in distorting and concerning the truth have been implemented and why is it still being acted out?

[davidstipek]

What puzzles me is that none of the 200+ passengers on the 'plane appear to have called, Emailed or used any readily available Social Media to contact the outside world and let them know what was happening on the aircraft; OK many of the Chinese passengers may not have been technologically "aware" but, just as an example, there were 20 very skilled Computer Hardware designers on board - all of whom must surely have had access to their own iPhones or whatever.

It would be impossible for Hijackers to impound all such devices - and if it was the Flight Crew who took over the aircraft after locking themselves in the Flight Deck then they certainly could not have stopped passengers communicating with the outside world.

Patrick

Patrick...

Yes all communications to and from Aircraft could have been done with one easy "Click" and no one would have ever been any wiser or thought anything about it as they woud have thought.... "Oh we are beyound range of any Tower" And from 35 thousand or at ANY cruiseing altitude impossible to verify.

Just turning on a "Cell Blocker" Anywher in the aircraft would have simpified this task...

[3NUMBAS]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/hijacked-void-132800953--politics.html#fk5W6RU

^ looks like a search would be extreme and difficult for the 'black box'

[davidstipek]

As an aviation professional and ex Air Safety Investigator I have refrained from posting so far as most of the posts , as usual with aviation topics on TV, have been ignorant, arrogant, often racially offensive and its a waste of time to respond.

However some comments. Most of the "chaos" about the search that Malaysian, Vietnamese, Singaporean, Thai, Chinese, US, Australian and NZ participants have ALL conducted is in fact confusion caused by hopelessly inaccurate and sensational press reports - including comments by their "experts". The first thing in any aviation incident is NEVER to place any reliance in press reports. It is most unfortunate that the relatives of those missing have to put up with this.

I have worked on Air Traffic Control and Airport projects extensively in Asia, including 10 years in Malaysia. The Malaysians (and their neighbours) are quire capable of mounting competent search and rescue missions, dependant on the data available. They stated in the right place (then the last known position) and expanded this area as further CONFIRMED new data (not press beat ups) became available.

The only mistake the Malaysians did make was in not having a professional media person to handle the press conferences, and in not holding these more frequently. The press is driven by the 24 hours news cycle - and if they don't get what they think they need they go nuts and run wild in all directions.

The latest CONFIRMED information means searching in a huge area, and support will be needed form the countries in the region, and those with superior detection systems - satellite, aircraft and surface and submarine vessels. We can only hope that they are successful.

The press is not only inaccurate about aviation matters. The Daily Mail report refers to the Malaysian Prime Minister as Mr Razak. He is not - he is Mr Najib. He is a Malay Muslim and in keeping with that tradition his full name is Najib bin Tun Razak - the "bin" means son of his father Tun Razak (the second Prime Minister of Malaysia). Razak is his father's named not his. You cant count on the press to get anything much correct.

Just a thought... If reported last Ping to Satelite was north From Perth.....

Has anyone checked to see how close this is to Diego Garcia??? (To me it looks Damn Close! Maybe on aproach....?)

[Thai at Heart]

MH370: fears of 9/11-style Islamic terror plot

The link above will take you to today's edition of the Daily Telegraph in the U.K..

Indeed a chilling read with too many reminders of the past events connected to international terrorism by assorted religious fanatics.

Time is not important to these terrorists, however a long lull in matters indeed raises and compounds the fear factor when terror strikes again.

Going by comments coming from the Malaysian political leadership and now this particular article the more one is led to believe that those involved in the management of the crisis limitation concerning this matter have in reality been concealing the truth from the rest of the world ,

Why, and to what ends we must ask should this exercise in distorting and concerning the truth have been implemented and why is it still being acted out?

It proves that for all the efforts made to control passengers that the fear is corruption and planted personnel in the indutry. Why bother to send a passenger to do the job when a pilot or crew or check in staff and immigration can conspire to do the job.

I won't ever get on a Muslim airline again. And I hope that all thee western airlines start to vet all their personnel for political and religious extremist activity.

[jayjayjayjay]

"Neither that team (the Malaysian air force base at Butterworth) nor the crews at two other radar installations at Kota Bharu, closer to where the airliner last had contact with the ground, designated the blip as an unknown intruder warranting attention, the person said. The aircraft proceeded to fly across the country and out to sea without anyone on watch telling a superior and alerting the national defense command near Kuala Lumpur, even though the radar contacts flight path did not correspond to any filed flight plan. As a result, combat aircraft never scrambled to investigate."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/world/asia/series-of-errors-by-malaysia-mounts-complicating-the-task-of-finding-flight-370.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Difficult to imagine incompetence to such a degree. How could a hijacker have planned on such multiple oversight?

Sounds like the Malaysian Air Force / National Defence Command were "got at" in the same way as NORAD were "prevented" from doing their job on 9/11. Hauntingly similar circumstances! The can of worms is being opened

Not all countries HAVE to be worried to the "nth" degree about plane crossing their territory. With Malaysia's central Asia location it doesnt matter as with countries at the center of Axis of Evil!! Nobody hates Malaysia like almost everyone hates America. I see no connection except some sleepy 2am traffic monitoring staff!

[goatfarmer]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/hijacked-void-132800953--politics.html#fk5W6RU

^ looks like a search would be extreme and difficult for the 'black box'

So what's the scenario envisaged in the article? The hijackers took the plane to the South Pacific and ditched the plane where it would never be found with the aim of keeping everyone guessing forever? Terror by mystery?