Beijing-bound MAS plane carrying 239 people missing as of 20 mins ago.

I believe the plane to be airborne. Map time of photo is 3/12/2014 at 4:49 a.m.

reply to post by rockflier


You flagged this also right???? Interesting. Thanks.....

j.r.c.b.
reply to post by rockflier

 

You flagged this also right???? Interesting. Thanks.....

Not as of yet. I wanted to get the opinion of the forum as to if I should. Lots of bogus flaggings on TomNod so I want to be sure.

Just been checking my aircraft recog, and im a little confused as to the correct type if its intact and flying, because with no engines showing under the wings, this is a normal layout for non T-Tail aircraft, these aircraft usualy have engines like the DC9/MD 80-90 series on the rear fusalage.
It is almost like a mix of two aircraft types.

rockflier
Here is the airport near where my aircraft photo came from on TomNod Map 654753.

That is Veer Savarkar International Airport. 11.644302N, 92.732083E and has 11,170 foot runway. I measured the hangars and they're not big enough to hold a 777. Unless they enlarged the hangars after the latest Google Earth photo.

reply to post by Mikeultra


Area is too built up and someone would be bound to see it land there

DrHammondStoat
More confusion !

During the press conference the Malaysia authorities spread more confusion about the location and timing of when the plane’s communication system was turned off.

Hishamuddin said the Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System (Acars) was turned off just after the plane flew over the city of Kota Baru. The transponder was switched off near the Igari waypoint over the South China Sea.

But Malaysia Airlines chief executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said the Acars system could have been turned off at any time during a 30 minute period.

So all the reports that the pilot said "good night" KNOWING the communications were turned off could be bollocks!

The Malaysian Government is intentionally causing confusion and misinformation to deflect responsibility and investigation of its own failures.

I have learned through a professional aviation website that Malaysian Airlines refuses to pay for satelite bandwith for their pilots to use ACARS therefore Malaysian Airlines only enable ACARS to be connected at airport terminals via wi-fi or cell phone networks.

It is only enabled by Rolls Royce at the request and expense of Rolls Royce to monitor engine behavious as and when Rolls Royce request it.

Therefore when the Malaysian Government tried to suggest something sinister about ACARS being turned off on MH370 they were being misleading. Malaysian Airline pilots are always required to turn off ACARS unless directed otherwise.

The vast majority of you people are being led by the nose by lies and disinformation from the Malaysian Government. You never question anything they tell you or think for yourselves.

We have all seen these two pictures or some form of them,
one with the based on ping location lines
and one with the flight direction lines
I assume they found the flight direction by following the ping trail.
MasMedia only talk about the last ping.
If I combine the two graphs i see that on the south they do not seem
intersect ever or seem very far apart.
But on the north side they do seem to intersect,
Just fuzzy muffled both trails on one picture on the left.
The lines intersect in Kazachstan
That is why I heard the word Kazachstan so many times.
i assume.
I think the satellite corp is way too optimistic about the
precision of the location.
Conclusion:
Of course the ping locations are very unprecise.
Od course the direction graph is very unprecise.
But my gut feeling says that the plane is in Iran or some
farawayistan.

reply to post by sy.gunson


Reports are that ACARS is sent automatically anyway and that Malaysia didn't subscribe, hence the information was relayed to them via SITA from RR, which was part of the delay, it required verification before the information was released. The rest of the pings were from Inmarsat.

That said, Malaysian investigators ability and pace has been questioned, publicly. There are now French investigators on the case as of today, as well as other nations.

As for the personal attacks, it isn't necessary and comments like that makes ATS less enjoyable for most. Personally, my intelligence and integrity are thoroughly intact.

The vast majority of you people are being led by the nose by lies and disinformation from the Malaysian Government. You never question anything they tell you or think for yourselves.

U.S. Representative Pete King (R) New York just said on Fox News that, "the only reason the pilot took the plane so far south into the Indian Ocean on a suicide mission is because they (pilots) didn't want the plane to be found."

How does he know that? Sounds like a deflection from the true culprits. He doesn't want the plane found! Message received, plane will never, ever be found.

How would we even know if the 'pilot' on that site is a pilot and knows how Malaysia Air operates. It's the internet and so many facts come from 'I can't say who because _________'.

So why are no people in the know calling Malaysia air on that fact and their lie?

DrHammondStoat
reply to post by sy.gunson

 

Thanks for the immensely plausible information and theories you have shared so far.

I am leaning towards some kind of simple accident being behind all this too. The only doubt over this angle is the 'deliberate' turning off of communication systems. We have been told the ACARS system was switched off just before the transponder.

Is it possible that a fire such as you describe could short out the systems one by one giving the impression they had been turned off?

Would the slow depressurisation and hypoxia theory also explain the erratic flying, the 'strange' sounding last voice contact and the communication systems being turned off in confusion? Is one theory a better explanation than the other?

I would like to hear your thoughts on these questions.

DrHammondStoat first of thank you, but I see nothing strange about the radio hand off saying good night etc. Pilots are normal human beings and the exchange of civilities and pleasantries in signing off is common.

Until this moment, like most people I was led to believe by Malaysian Authorities that there was something strange or sinister in the ACARS being turned off. On a professional aviation forum however I learned that Malaysian Airlines is unwilling to pay for ACARS satellite bandwidth except on request when Rolls Royce are monitoring a particular engine on a particular aircraft at the expense of Rolls Royce. That airline only permits connection at airport terminals otherwise through local airport wi-fi connectivity. Thus it was normal to turn ACARS off departing Kuala Lumpur.

Thus the Malaysian Government have been deceptive and misleading in how they suggested soomething sinister about ACARS being turned off and have been trying to direct people to suspect terrorism

Likewise with transponders, with older types of transponders using a knob arrangement, one first has to turn it off (to standby) before inputting a new code for entering a new airspace. They had signed out of Malaysian airspace and were awaiting to make contact with the next airspace ATC for directions to input another transponder code.

The Transponder code simply have been in standby mode waiting for pilots to input a new code when some catastrophe struck

I understand Malaysian had the older style transponders as opposed to new push button ones which don't need to be turned off to accept a new code

Thanks to everyone for this most intriquing post.

Something's been nagging me. Is it possible to refuel a plane from the inside? Maybe from a cache of fuel in the cargo hold?

If you wanted to increase the flight capacity of a specific plane, why not max out the cargo and passenger weight with containers of fuel?

Refueling in the air may be impossible, but once on the ground...

There was a theory on this post way back about mysterious cargo.

I brought the subject up because my favorite pet theories have the plane in the air too long.

If I spelled everything right, call the Vatican. A miracle just took place.

jmaguire1977
reply to post by Mikeultra

 

Area is too built up and someone would be bound to see it land there

I agree with you. The area is pretty populated by the looks of it, surely someone would have seen the plane.

Maybe that snapshot is of a plane above ground coming in to land??

Arbitrageur

sy.gunson
So nothing is changed... the range was 5 hours flying from north of Banda Acheh (Sumatra) presumably flying at 23,000ft.

sy.gunson
So if it was last seen from Butterworth radar at 29,500ft then it disappeared at 226nm from RMAF Butterworth... simple maths

It may seem simple yo you, but in one post you presume 23,000 feet for 5 hours and in the next post you seem to contradict that by posting an altitude of 29,500ft, so I'm not really following you. I'm not presuming it flew at any steady altitude since it was obviously changing, and I'm not sure why you're trying to make such presumptions either. As far as i know the altitude was all over the place after the transponder signal ended and that variation could have continued for a long time.

The initial Malaysian Government reports sourced on data from radar at RMAF Butterworth gave these altitude figures saying that it climbed to 45,000ft then fell to 23,000ft. Subsequently I have learned that it gradually climbed as it flew around the Straits of malacca and was at 29,500ft as it flew out of radar range into the Indian Ocean.

I presumed nothing, I cited information which has been released piecemeal in an ambiguous and confusing manner.

The RMAF radar station Butterworth is manned by experts from the Malaysian Air Force and the Australian Air Force skilled at deducing altitudes from range and other information. If they declared it was at 45,000ft then that was based on actual observation and trigonometry.

Re: The Suicidal/Protesting Pilot theory


If I were to protest about the government and blatant corruption or their smear campaign against the opposition, would I really think taking the plane I was flying, with 238 other innocent souls, on a magical mystery tour? As a devoted follower of Anwar, would I really want to cause an event to besmirch his name further?

I don't buy the theory. Do any of you honestly believe it?

(I bring this up again because I am getting a little sick of hearing about it in the media and on social media)

Hi this is my first post so not too sure best format to write up. Looking through the forum ive seen a post say that the plane limited the seating number of passengers (minus 20) to possibly allow for more cargo. However could this not be a well calculated weight for fuel plan that they needed this extra 400kg of weight in order to reach the destination. Therefore instead of searching within the vast area of the possible distance travelled should they not take the normal fuel amount and distance it can travel from its last known destination and search beyond this perimeter up to the extra fuel added to the flight. May be something thats already been discussed but thought id share.

liteonit6969

TruthxIsxInxThexMist
Do you really think someone would fly a plane without a flight path?

It would be way too dangerous to attempt it without crashing midair into another plane!

No, it wouldn't, especially when flying over open water. On approach and departure from an airport it would be risky, as would some straight line type paths between airports (e.g. air corridors). Otherwise, although one may read the occasional report of a near miss, the chances of this happening are extremely small, especially with instrumentation aboard planes.

sy.gunson

DrHammondStoat
reply to post by sy.gunson

 

Thanks for the immensely plausible information and theories you have shared so far.

I am leaning towards some kind of simple accident being behind all this too. The only doubt over this angle is the 'deliberate' turning off of communication systems. We have been told the ACARS system was switched off just before the transponder.

Is it possible that a fire such as you describe could short out the systems one by one giving the impression they had been turned off?

Would the slow depressurisation and hypoxia theory also explain the erratic flying, the 'strange' sounding last voice contact and the communication systems being turned off in confusion? Is one theory a better explanation than the other?

I would like to hear your thoughts on these questions.

DrHammondStoat first of thank you, but I see nothing strange about the radio hand off saying good night etc. Pilots are normal human beings and the exchange of civilities and pleasantries in signing off is common.

Until this moment, like most people I was led to believe by Malaysian Authorities that there was something strange or sinister in the ACARS being turned off. On a professional aviation forum however I learned that Malaysian Airlines is unwilling to pay for ACARS satellite bandwidth except on request when Rolls Royce are monitoring a particular engine on a particular aircraft at the expense of Rolls Royce. That airline only permits connection at airport terminals otherwise through local airport wi-fi connectivity. Thus it was normal to turn ACARS off departing Kuala Lumpur.

Thus the Malaysian Government have been deceptive and misleading in how they suggested soomething sinister about ACARS being turned off and have been trying to direct people to suspect terrorism

Likewise with transponders, with older types of transponders using a knob arrangement, one first has to turn it off (to standby) before inputting a new code for entering a new airspace. They had signed out of Malaysian airspace and were awaiting to make contact with the next airspace ATC for directions to input another transponder code.

The Transponder code simply have been in standby mode waiting for pilots to input a new code when some catastrophe struck

I understand Malaysian had the older style transponders as opposed to new push button ones which don't need to be turned off to accept a new code

Thank you for posting this. Puts a different spin on everything. I had been thinking in a narrow direction until now.

reply to post by liteonit6969



I read something earlier about the cargo load (according to the airline ceo....take it with a grain of salt) and had a bit of a "Aurora needs more coffee" moment.

No hazardous cargo - just mangosteens

Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 was transporting 3-4 tonnes of mangosteens to China, said the airline's group chief executive officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya (pic) today.

Speaking at the latest press conference on the missing MAS flight MH370, Ahmad Jauhari added that there was no hazardous cargo on board the aircraft.

Is it normal to send tonnes of fruit via commercial passenger planes to another country?? Fruit!

On a side note, it's nice to know there's some extra food there for the passengers/crew should they be in a hostage situation.