Update: Malaysian military now reveals that the plane reappeared elsewhere

Vasa Croe
Well that particular plane has a maximum range of 14,305 KM when fully fueled. That is quite the range.

While that may be the planes range fully fueled it would not have been full. Airlines do not fill planes tanks to capacity each flight. They only put in enough fuel to get to the destination and hold enough reserve to get to two alternate airports or hold for an hour or two over a single airport. Fuel is heavy and airlines like to fly as lite as possible to save said fuel.

Also, has it occurred to anyone that it would be far easier to steal (or buy) a plane for later use in a terrorist attack? If one is going to put together such an operation it would also be far easier to hijack a FedEx cargo plane.

IMO the plane has crashed or it was hijacked and the passengers are going to be used as bargaining chips. Although the ransom idea is IMO also far fetched as three days is more than enough time to land and offload the passengers to a area and make a call with demands for their return.

Hopefully this gets solved by someone at some point.

Mamatus

Vasa Croe
Well that particular plane has a maximum range of 14,305 KM when fully fueled. That is quite the range.

While that may be the planes range fully fueled it would not have been full. Airlines do not fill planes tanks to capacity each flight. They only put in enough fuel to get to the destination and hold enough reserve to get to two alternate airports or hold for an hour or two over a single airport. Fuel is heavy and airlines like to fly as lite as possible to save said fuel.

It would if they landed and re-fueled as I went on to say in later posts. I actually think that is exactly what they did. Landed at another airport, either private or with the help of outside parties at a public airport, taxi'd the 777 to a hangar and refueled.

reply to post by Vasa Croe


I am a commercial pilot and there are far easier ways to secure an airplane. I know this is all about conspiracies but logic dictates that there are easier and smarter way to accomplish the goal of getting a plane.

In fact I know a place in SoCal (and another in Nor-Cal) where I could nab two to three people and make them fly me where ever I wanted to go. All while looking legal, running transponders and talking to ATC.

There is also this weirdness:

The 727 that Vanished from Angola in 2003

So, they never found that one either and there were ties to known terrorists.

reply to post by Mamatus


Just saw your edited content above. No need to reply. Thanks.

reply to post by Mamatus


If the plane is intact and passengers alive, would it have had enough fuel to get somewhere like Somalia or Yemen? They're both relatively lawless places I could see being just corrupt enough to have the right people help hide a huge honkin' 777 in. Since everyone's focused on Iran maybe being involved, they'd be a good "other" option to stash something in.

Also, what are the Indonesian groups up to lately? No one's mentioned the possibility of Indonesian group involvement.

reply to post by Mamatus


is it even possible for a plane of this size to fly to a different airport undetected, land, and remain hidden for this long?

We're talking a large plane, flying through public airspace, to another country. Wouldn't that country have to know that the plane was coming in?

Don't countries have defense systems in place that would detect a large aircraft coming into their territory?

reply to post by Mamatus


While I can see where you are coming from, it would be far easier to unload a plane of passengers than a fully loaded cargo plane as well....you just tell them to get off. Unloading unknown cargo could also have tracking devices on shipments, as they commonly do, which would require more time to go through all those shipments in order to secure any tracking devices.

As to buying a plane....I would think any purchase of a commercial jetliner would be highly scrutinized at this point. I am pretty sure that would leave a trail to whatever organization bought it and would have already been under some sort of surveillance.

Fact of the matter is, hijacking a civilian jetliner in a lax security environment is still easy to do with the right coordination.

You are also coming at this from a commercial pilot point of view....much more informed than I would say the average person or terrorist is. But we are also talking about Malaysia so the rules are a bit different I would imagine.

The change in flight path alone suggests hijacking however with nobody taking responsibility nor any demands being made at this point I am still sticking with my theory of them landing and re-fueling for another purpose.

reply to post by Vasa Croe

Personally I think the plane has hit somewhere in a jungle or the ocean (not where expected so possibly hijacked) and is going to be really hard to locate. Not all plane crashes start fires and if you have ever been in a rain forest you would know just how dense it is. A plane down in a remote jungle may take years to find. It is actually easier to locate a crash at sea.

Note: There have been many plane crashes at sea where nothing is ever found.

Mamatus

There have been many plane crashes at sea where nothing is ever found.

Maybe in 20th century but in 2014 ?

Can i go out on a limb and make a suggestion -
forget terrorism.

Air Piracy..

The sea around Thailand etc is full of pirates.

Maybe thats why theres no vindication by terrorists or demands for ransom by kidnappers.

They may have landed on a private strip in the jungle, maybe an abandoned military strip from WW2 on Sumatra..

Crakeur
reply to post by Mamatus

 

is it even possible for a plane of this size to fly to a different airport undetected, land, and remain hidden for this long?

We're talking a large plane, flying through public airspace, to another country. Wouldn't that country have to know that the plane was coming in?

Don't countries have defense systems in place that would detect a large aircraft coming into their territory?

Indonesia is pretty corrupt, and has some pretty shocking air defence systems, lol. Wouldn't surprise me if the jet made a covert landing on Indonesian territory. This makes sense to me, as the plane only had 7 hours worth of fuel, and was seen heading towards Indonesia. Add to this that the plane would have already wasted a good 2 hours worth of fuel by the time it had reached the Malacca Strait, passing over Malaysia...

reply to post by Vasa Croe

I live near an amazing private airport called Eagles Nest. It is the kind of place with runways to the door of your house. There are several very large privately owned jets there. Not to mention a small armada of privately owned ex military planes. It would be fairly easy to snatch someone there and steal a plane.

It is also not the only airport like it. Taking a plane of 250+ passengers just for the plane? Makes no sense. Now if it had hit a target on it's existing fuel load I would buy it.

Only the movies make it that complicated...

andy1972
Can i go out on a limb and make a suggestion -
forget terrorism.

Air Piracy..

The sea around Thailand etc is full of pirates.

Maybe thats why theres no vindication by terrorists or demands for ransom by kidnappers.

They may have landed on a private strip in the jungle, maybe an abandoned military strip from WW2 on Sumatra..

edit on AM2Tue20141972 by andy1972 because: (no reason given)

I would think this would be more a case like mamatus said in which a cargo plane would have been taken, unless you are suggesting a human trafficking angle of some sort. Much more valuable cargo on a FedEx flight than on a passenger jet me thinks...

reply to post by kosmicjack


I agree with you on that, but does any one know what the security situation is at that airport that they took off from? Remember its not in the states so they probly wont have the same security level. It might be easier to do it from there then it would be be from USA or Canada.

reply to post by xavi1000

Yup. Oceans are mighty large. Some of the jungles in Indonesia could swallow ten planes whole.

But then Medan, which is near the coast of sumatra and the Malaca straight has a reputation all of it own.....

Jakarta, 25 June (AKI/Jakarta Post) - Indonesian officials said Medan, in North Sumatra, is turning into a centre for terrorism financing, following the arrest of five suspects with assets worth nearly Rp 8 billion (US$848,000), allegedly used to fund paramilitary training and terrorism operations.

City of Medan is a terrorist financial centre

Skyfloating
After disappearing, the plane changed course, apparently having turned off its transponder and tracking equipment.

Obviously hijacked .. and I'd bet a box of donuts it was hijacked by those supposedly 'non terrorist' Iranians who had the fake passports. Where the plane is now? Good question. But considering none of the passengers got any cell phone calls out and the phones aren't answering now, I'm thinking it crashed and is dust (or is at the bottom of the ocean).

roadgravel
So civilian ATC didn't see this plane flying back into airspace around Kuala Lumpur. This story seems fishy.

you forget something, "civilian ATC" only works if the transponder is turned on. as long as they avoid active radar sites they would be "invisible".

what they could do is to take over another "known" flight of a 777. if they have planned this (which i would think is a big yes), they could paint up the aircraft in the correct "colors" for the aircraft they plan on "using". reprogram or replace the transponder so it will "squawk" as that aircraft. then while said aircraft is out of active radar range, hijack the target aircraft. then get the "fake" aircraft close to the one just taken over. turn off the target aircraft's transponder and turn on the fake transponder. any anomalies "seen" will be taken as a glitch. then the fake aircraft can follow the course of the real one and do whatever they plan on doing with it. meanwhile they have a choice. crash the real one or land it somewhere and try to ransom off the crew and passengers from both aircraft, or do whatever they want to them.

something else i haven't seen mentioned at all. what if this is just straight out piracy, either to ransom off the aircraft, crew and passengers, or even to outright sell the aircraft on the black market or pull it apart (chop shop time) and sell of the parts through the black market. this is after all a very valuable aircraft. piracy at least on the "high seas" is still very much a problem today. and this aircraft is worth $261 MILLION new after all. so they could get say $100 million for it and turn that money over for weapons and better boats since the world seems to be trying as always to crack down on the piracy, plus shipping companies using armed mercenaries and even mounting weapons on their ships. just think if the pirates were to build a "commercial raider" that could try to take on things like destroyers with a chance of success, what they could do.

Vasa Croe

andy1972
Can i go out on a limb and make a suggestion -
forget terrorism.

Air Piracy..

The sea around Thailand etc is full of pirates.

Maybe thats why theres no vindication by terrorists or demands for ransom by kidnappers.

They may have landed on a private strip in the jungle, maybe an abandoned military strip from WW2 on Sumatra..

edit on AM2Tue20141972 by andy1972 because: (no reason given)

I would think this would be more a case like mamatus said in which a cargo plane would have been taken, unless you are suggesting a human trafficking angle of some sort. Much more valuable cargo on a FedEx flight than on a passenger jet me thinks...

We dont know who was carrying what and why...sometimes words on paper are worth more than gold..sensetive material maybe.