Missing plane "deliberately flew way off course"

and with everything being said it sounds like they are hideing alot of what they know because they dont want a panic on there hands

The ultimate theme of this evolving story is:

Jane Sixpack doesn’t have any more transparency or vouchesafe of security in air transit than she had 13 years ago.

Despite paying uncountable costs in taxation and civil liberties.

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malaysia had its part in this

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.

Did Reuters fire all of their copy editors?

Edit: Dean Yates, I’m calling you out.

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Investigators conclude missing jet was hijacked, Malaysian official says.

Investigators have concluded that one or more people with significant flying experience hijacked the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, switched off communication devices and steered it off course, a Malaysian government official involved in the investigation said Saturday.

Rather lost faith in that lot. They have every interest in glibly talking up the knife-edge expertise of the hijackers, so that everyone forgets how foolish they’ve been (lax security at the airport, missing a plane flying right over their turf, mis-directing expensive military and civil assets in the search, etc).

Short of psychological distress, I find it highly unlikely an experienced pilot would assist in a hijack. But like anything, not impossible. You’d be identified pretty quickly - modern Boeing experience, black sheep of the bunch etc.

A few things stand out - e.g. from the LA Times link - the transponder stopped 12 minutes before the messaging system - an experienced pilot familiar with a 777 who wished to cloak the aircraft would have shut both down simultaneously. Sounds like a hijacker caused the transponder to switch off, then after 10 minutes noticed the messaging system.

The jinking waypoint to waypoint path - a Cessna 172 has adequately sophisticated autopilot that you can turn the autopilot on, and simply input waypoints, and it will fly them until it runs out of fuel. Passenger jets have very similar gear - more advanced, but the key is simplicity in operation, so they’re not really that different. If that jinking really is the path it took, then anyone could have done it. Really - anyone with a brain.

For example, anybody who can follow verbal instructions could fly a 777 into a perfect and safe landing at London Heathrow from cruise altitude. The key to aviation is simplicity - that’s safety - because when everything goes chaotic, the important things need to happen in the simplest way, or you die.

“Flying to avoid radar” - well, it’s not so hard to identify the positioning of these installations, particularly if you’re bent on a hijacking and can assign a researcher to it. Malaysia is not mountainous so little risk of banging into the ground. So the waypoint path could be pre-prepared prior to hijack, and simply followed. It would be a path to control the craft using the AP that somewhat minimised exposure to radar - although if you consider it - an experienced pilot would follow a more sophisticated route by using the autopilot to control heading alone - it would look more curvy.

So it smells to me like a person / team familiarised themselves with operation, but didn’t have sophisticated knowledge or experience. An experienced pilot would also likely point the jet in a straight line to get to destination - they’d be loathe to use up fuel jinking, particularly if there was a pre-determined destination (like the Andaman Islands) - landing a 777 needs a big strip, there aren’t many around (you could use a highway though …), and you’re likely to be challenged if you enter the wrong airspace, so need the maximum flight time you can manage.

There is an element of sophistication - showing that research was done. The hijack likely occurred either just after or just before the handover from Malaysia air traffic control to Vietnam - and the “good night” to Malaysia isn’t very airliney - which is the perfect moment for confusion to arise. So you’re watching the position of the craft on the inflight TV, and you know just about when to hijack.

So it may well boil down to a catalogue of atrocious amateurism in Malaysia’s handling from A-Z of the incident, deliberate obfuscation to cover up what seem to be not just errors but inaction, and the lost early opportunity to assist 250+ people on that aircraft.

Malaysians are sophisticated people, many highly educated, many highly experienced in business and academia etc, but is riven with divisive politics and Machiavellian battles for domination and wealth. There’s this kind of “will they, won’t they” moment where they could become a properly sorted out country - but this kind of incident is going to do their image a lot of damage that the general people don’t deserve.

The whole incident is a crying shame.

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Possibilities, in order of likeliness to have happened:

  1. The plane was hijacked and landed somewhere. If this is the case, we better find it - and quickly - before we have another 9/11.

  2. The plane is in pieces, at the bottom of the ocean. We’ll never find it. That’s right, I said “never”. Remember how long they were looking for the Titanic? That ship is HUGE.

Yep - but on (1) what would the target be? Delhi? To be frank, the US / Western Europe / Russia / China wouldn’t allow the jet to fly unimpeded in their airspace.

PM of Malaysia steps up, pretty much warts 'n all statement, looks like he’s centralising control of the story and canning the chit chat going around. All the data is out now, so the political response is now a by-product rather than an influential factor in the investigation.
http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2014/03/15/missing-mh370-najib-statement/

I’d look for an island with a dormant volcano. Because it sounds more and more like a Bond-movie villain is involved in this somehow.

It’s a scenario that has to be considered, but before even getting to mulling targets, the scenario requires that the plane was landed where it could be refuelled and probably modified (electronics/communications, markings, perhaps explosives if a full load of fuel is insufficient combustible matter for “their” nefarious aims)… All without detection. Sounds like a pretty tall order to me.

On the other hand, if all you want to do is crash a plane into something, wouldn’t you just commandeer one within range of your target? This case proves it’s still possible to commandeer a plane in this day and age (and I very much doubt Malaysia is the only place it could happen), and to fly it undetected for hours, possibly even violating several countries’ airspace in the process. Why add so many layers of complexity by landing, modding, and then going for a target? Because you want the passengers alive for some reason? Sounds unlikely.

As for Delhi, I doubt India is all that much easier a target than all the other countries you mentioned. It is after all involved in a nasty, long-running cold war/nuclear standoff with Pakistan…

Here?

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Yeah, that’s my point - if it was a 9/11 scenario, you’d use the aircraft once you had it. It would never make it through US etc airspace, they’d shoot it down. Unless more Bond villain stuff.

Yup, even if you were going to land, refuel, mod, etc. presumably you’d want to do your dastardly deed while everyone was still looking for wreckage thousands of miles away. With every passing day, you lose more element of surprise…

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… ATC seems to have received the “all right, good night” message after the transponder was swtiched off.

So if anyone’s seen those videos of FlightRadar24 etc showing the plane turning red and disappearing, that’s what would have happened, in front of ATC eyes, unless their software is real junk from the 50s (which, by all accounts, it isn’t).

The Malaysian Minister of Transport and Minister of Defence are one and the same person. He’s the cousin of the prime minister, the son of the 3rd prime minister of Malaysia, and the grandson of the guy who founded UMNO, the ruling party (that maintains a facade of democracy to the world). You can see how this works quickly into a story of a ruling elite, which obviously throws up issues around share of power and wealth internally etc.

The Malaysians are refusing offers of assistance in the investigation (not the search though), even though they utterly lack the capability to undertake it.

This author - Kenneth J. Conboy - has written a lot (I’m picking this up from news, I’ve never read him) on militant groups in SE Asia.

Internally, Malaysians have been increasingly concerned with the moves towards (note: not yet to, just towards) harder line islam over the last couple of decades.

So this new piece of news, from the Prime Minister, is hugely concerning. It could indicate a level of sympathetic behaviour within air control (be that civil or military) that at the very least caused adequate un-responce to occur that we are where we are. You could go a lot further than that without it being apparent there was any involvement.

The Malaysians are releasing info only as it becomes apparent that if they don’t, it’ll get spotted and media-ised.

This is a deepening mystery, and looks set to get political.

Worth a read -

Or 370 was a test run for something more sinister still to come.

Here’s a theory:

Everything was going peachy. Then there was a fire in the avionics room beneath the cockpit.

The fire was put out, but the AWACS and all electrical systems went out.

Since the engines power the hydraulics, the plane was still able to fly, but it was flying blind, at night.

In the commotion, the plan got turned west. They thought they were still heading north. Flying over west over Malaysia they think they’re flying north over the coast of Vietnam.

They turn west, which is south, to head for China to look to land there. This leads them to the middle of the Indian ocean where they ditch.

Everyone dies.

The Chinese separatists could have taken the plane. They’ve been restless (rightly so) for a long time, and have been active of late.

I have no expertise, but do planes not have a compass as a backup for figuring out their heading? Is there something between highest-tech avionics and looking out the window?

Other than that question, your theory sounds reasonable to me.