Malaysia Airlines plane Flight MH370 missing: New hostage theory

reply to post by OpinionatedB


Dont agree with that im afraid. The passengers will have known somethings up. If they were put in a hostage situation we'd have known by now, what kind of hijackers take a plane and then make no demands?

Plus the food on an aircraft cant feed 239 people for a week, so they would have had to have moved them from the plane, which means more chance of someone somewhere seeing something. And what about phones/ laptops/ tablets? If they were on the ground somewhere they would get some signal so it would be likely someone would have at least managed to send something to someone. Nah, Its too implausable for me.

The way I see it, even if the plane was taken, those passengers are long gone Im afraid.

OpinionatedB

As far as the pilots, you can threaten a mans family and get them to do what you need... fear is a strong motivator, especially when its not fear for self but fear for others.

edit on 14-3-2014 by OpinionatedB because: (no reason given)

Youve been watching too many action films by the sound of it.

Aircraft transponder codes have at least 3 dedicated squalk codes for emergencies, one of which is reserved explicitly for hijacking. All the pilot has to do is flick the transponder over to that code and ATC on the ground will know they are in trouble, even if they cant make radio contact.

Even if someone put a gun to the pilots head and told him to switch the thing off, he could still easily switch the transponder to the hijack code before turning it off, which would still register with ATC and they would have to assume a hijacking has taken place. The normal procedure would then be to scramble fighters to intercept the aircraft and check if anything was wrong.

And lets not forget, this thing dissappeared off radar as well, you cant do that unless you have either invented some sort of stealth technology that you can activate mid flight, or you put that plane on the deck. It would take a very skilled pilot to pull that off, especially at night, and would require some preparatory work in the cockpit before you pulled the maneuver.

Reaper62

ThePeaceMaker
Good theory, the one thing I can't understand is despite turning off the transponder and everything else, a ground radar would surely still pick up the aircraft would it not ? Legitimate question there

It is possible to literally fly 'under the radar', especially while over large expanses of water. Radars send out radio waves to detect objects in the air, but it can't see things that are too low to the ground as it has to have clear line of sight to the object its tracking. This means that over land, a radar on one side of a large hill for example, wouldnt be able to see an object on the other side as the radio waves cant travel through the hil. Radar is effective for tracking aircraft as they are up in the air with no obstacles between them and the radar. When it comes to tracking over water, radar installations are often positioned on coastlines to make them most effective, but they still have blind spots at low altitute.
At sea level, even if there are no other obstacles in the way (islands etc), radars can only see so far, as the curvature of the earth means that after so many miles the horizon drops away. Radars are also not used to look that low down anyway due to all the maritime traffic etc.

This makes it possible to make an aircraft 'disappear' from radar, although they would have to fly very low (maybe below 1000 feet, possibly lower even that 500 ft). In order to get a 777 down that low and fly it effectively for an extended period of time, you would need a very experienced captian and probably co pilot. I would also say they would need military flying experience to pull something like that off. So, if this is what happened, I would absolutely expect the crew to be in on it.

Even if someone burst into the cockpit and put a gun to your head, one flick of a switch can turn the transponder to an emergency hijack code, so without the hijacker noticing, you can start squalking an emergency code. The only way I can see this not happening is if the pilots intentionally turned the transponder off.

The theory about depressurisation is a valid one (it happened before with an aircraft flying over Greece if I remember correctly), but as you say it would likely have strayed into airspace where they were at least visible to radar. And unconsious pilots cant deactivate transponders.

The thing that really puzzles me is, if this was a hijacking, how would they keep all the passengers under control, as chances are they would eventually realise what was happening and try to do something about it...

I remember some of this radar stuff from when I took meterolgy in college more than a decade ago. Radar can be optimized in certain ways as well. For example, you can tilt the radar at a certain degree, and get data from higher in the atmosphere at the expense of distance. The oposite is also true, you can set it up for greater distance at the expense of height.

reply to post by bigdaveyl



You have to also be looking for something, they weren't until after.

I read that the pilots family had left him in the last couple of days.Also it turns out the pilots hero is an opposition political leader who was just sentenced to prison before the flight took off.I'm guessing the pilot is in this deep!

reply to post by TDawg61


He went to a public trial of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim supposedly, it was reported by a British tabloid.

It seems the media are going to sentence and hang the pilot before they even find the plane..

Psy-op, co-intel bad attempt.... Speculations!

There is only one big question and nothing more: WHERE IS THE PLANE?

reply to post by bigdaveyl


Right. That's how they optimise weather radar I guess?

Aircraft have similar short range Doppler radars in the nose for weather too, but as you say they sacrifice one attribute to enhance another.

I read an interesting theory today about the possibility that the aircraft could have flown behind/ under another plane and shadowed itself from radar that way. It's something I hadn't thought of before but the more I think of it, the more sense it makes. If you fly near another aircraft with your transponder off, the radar at tracon centres will effectively see one blip and one aircraft label. As long as they flew the same route of the aircraft they were shadowing, they could shadow them for miles across land and break away when they were in friendlier airspace (assuming we are talking about hijacking and landing the aircraft somewhere for future use) and could have an aircraft turned around and off to a different destination within hours.

I have another possible .......was gonna say explaination but I think its more of a motive.

Nothing to do with hijackers nor dodgy joyriding pilots.
I'm currently piecing things together but hey.

Petronas Twin Towers

Thousands of people were evacuated on 12 September 2001 after a bomb threat was phoned the day after the September 11 attacks destroyed the World Trade Center towers in New York City. Bomb Disposal squads found no bomb in the Petronas towers but they evacuated everyone. Workers and shoppers were allowed to return three hours later, around noon. No one was hurt during the evacuation.

Anchor Tennants.

Tower One is fully occupied by Petronas and a number of its subsidiaries and associate companies, while the office spaces in Tower Two are mostly available for lease to other companies.[24] A number of companies have offices in Tower Two, including Huawei Technologies, AVEVA, Al Jazeera English, Carigali Hess, Bloomberg, Boeing, IBM, Khazanah Nasional Berhad, McKinsey & Co, TCS, HCL Technologies, Krawler, Microsoft, The Agency (a modeling company) and Reuters.

But here's another interesting bit.
The Seven Sisters or should I say

The "New Seven Sisters"

The Financial Times has used the label the "New Seven Sisters" to describe a group of what it argues are the most influential national oil and gas companies based in countries outside of the OECD.[10][1] According to the Financial Times this group comprises:

China National Petroleum Corporation (China)
Gazprom (Russia)
National Iranian Oil Company (Iran)
Petrobras (Brazil)
PDVSA (Venezuela)
Petronas (Malaysia)←←←←←←←←
Saudi Aramco (Saudi Arabia)

I have another theory that the Daily Mail are welcome to print.

This theory assumes captain and crew are as they seem, dedicated and great aviators, passionate about their job and the people they're serving. And of course, it's merely an evolved idea from every other theory out there...

The Malaysian's TOLD the plane to change course. The only people the crew, other than the crew, would have ever fully trusted, IMO, must be other Malaysians, ground control, the military, whoever. Someone Malaysian told them to deviate, for whatever reason. Captain and crew followed this direct order to change to alternate frequency and follow new course immediately, because they trusted whoever was telling them to do so.

"Alright good night" is because they were told by this random third party who gave them orders on a fairly informal basis. That is a reply to a GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL or a friend, but perhaps like a PRESIDENT CALLING YOU IN FLIGHT. DO THIS, DO THAT, I am the president. "Alright good night" was NOT a call back to ground control. It sounds like a hesitant response to an unexpected COMMAND. Was a president in a military base speaking to MH370, ordering them to deviate for some reason?

Remember the Polish air crash? It happened because a GOV OFFICIAL entered the cockpit and ordered they descended because "time was getting on". The pilots HESITANTLY followed that order because they did not want to... well, you don't want to say NO to the Polish president!!! The same way the good crew of MH370 would not want to say no to their military, of government, asking them to deviate immediately.

They would not do it for anyone else. They simply would not, if they are the people we are being led to believe they are. Good aviators, and innocent passengers with no bad intentions.

They got a hunch at some point it was suspicious, and perhaps wanted to do something about it, but soon after the Malacca straight they were joined by a military escort of some kind. Not necessarily Malaysian, and they were moved to their current location, under guidance from an escort with all the necessary knowledge to stay in radar weak spots. Whether it took them 7 hours to reach who knows. The passengers were possibly ordered to switch their phones off. You wouldn't say no to the captain, or if you can clearly see a military presence outside your aisle window...!!!

My original point though - that they were told to change course, not that they did it out of their own "will". This is personal speculation of course. But has that angle been scrutinized? Because we're being pushed to believe it was the pilot or co-pilot or someone else ON BOARD intentions. I know that is the judgement of some major aviators too but have those folks also considered that it may have been "inputted" and "executed" due to a direct order, like the Polish air crash was?

That is just to get the cogs turning in that direction... Sorry for accusing "Malaysia" ha, but that's the only way I can make this point right now. That "third party instruction" to them could be anyone, someone the pilots are perhaps loyal to. A bit like Die Hard 2 sort of scenario. But I want to go with full assumption they are innocent in all of this personally, that they did not follow a terrorist group's instructions or such, and that they did not try and hypoxia their passengers.

It'd be nice to wake up tomorrow and find out everyone is absolutely innocent (and MH370 is safe) and this "real time conspiracy" could be laid to rest..

But ATS is most fun when these real-time events transpire. ATS exclusives shall we say... when imaginations run wild Sadly often at the expense of others, but that's human nature. Hope in time we can find some NICE real-time incidents... don't even know what that could be. Anyway I better be off now I just accused enough countries and people to feel positively sniped.

reply to post by markymint


Problem with that is they wouldn't have told them to turn Off their transponders etc. The pilots would know that no official would ever ask them to do something like that, and it would arouse suspicion. The pilots may ask for proof they were being ordered to do something by high up government officials, but how could the people on the ground prove who they were to an aircraft in mid flight? This would have surely caused some hesitation at the very least, but the aircraft vanished so suddenly I don't think it would likely have been done under instruction from someone on the other end of the radio.

Even if that did happen, what would they do with the passengers? And where would they fly the plane, and who would go to all that trouble just to get one? If it was a government or something behind it, it would be easier just to Jack a DHL aircraft or something that was due to fly Tokyo to LA. That way there's less civilian casualties, the options for disappearing and getting away with the aircraft are greater, and you get more time to get it where you want it to go before people notice. Plus it wouldn't be as big a story in the media, giving the plane thieves more leeway when it comes to re using the aircraft for another reason

Just seen this

www.bbc.co.uk...

Dont agree with that im afraid. The passengers will have known somethings up. If they were put in a hostage situation we'd have known by now, what kind of hijackers take a plane and then make no demands?

That is the big question, isn't it? Still, the facts seem to point more towards a deliberate abduction. If blowing up the plane was the deal, we'd have seen the results (they would have made sure), and responsibility claimed. So, they wanted something or someone (or many folks, most likely) intact. My guess is that group of technicians on board. Working on something pretty big?

Plus the food on an aircraft cant feed 239 people for a week, so they would have had to have moved them from the plane, which means more chance of someone somewhere seeing something.

Not if on some remote island in that area of the world. Plenty of them to pick from.

And what about phones/ laptops/ tablets? If they were on the ground somewhere they would get some signal so it would be likely someone would have at least managed to send something to someone. Nah, Its too implausable for me.

I think you're way over-estimating the capability of cell coverage and wifi coverage. Plenty of dead areas even in the US, let alone some remote islands.

Gazrok

That is the big question, isn't it? Still, the facts seem to point more towards a deliberate abduction. If blowing up the plane was the deal, we'd have seen the results (they would have made sure), and responsibility claimed. So, they wanted something or someone (or many folks, most likely) intact. My guess is that group of technicians on board. Working on something pretty big?

Sorry, what facts point towards a deliberate abduction??

As for the 'big question', I hope it was clear I was being facetious. To answer my own question, no one would hijack a plane and then not make any demands. The only reason they would do that is if they just wanted the plane, and if that was the case the passengers will be long dead anyway.

Not if on some remote island in that area of the world. Plenty of them to pick from.

But lots of countries, particularly the US and China, have geosynchronous satellites that they can utilise to comb those islands, there will only be a finite amount that the 777 could reach. Plus I refuse to beleive that a 777 landing at an airport unnanounced, particularly on a small island, would go unnoticed.

I think you're way over-estimating the capability of cell coverage and wifi coverage. Plenty of dead areas even in the US, let alone some remote islands.

And I think you're way under-estimating how difficult it would be to pull off what you are suggesting. I'm not aying it's impossible but I've seen no where near enough evidence to suggest criminal mastermind-esque hijacking/ abduction is even likely, let alone conclusive.

I'm happy to go into more detail if you feel strongly about it.

Unless...

Demands ARE being made, and the governments are keeping quiet, as told to do.

The plane IS missing; the hi-jackers aren't disclosing their location and never will. Once and if the demand is met, the gov'ts will be told where to pick up the hostages.

The hostages will never even know about any exchange of ransom.

Therefore, the hi-jackers will get away with this.

reply to post by QueenofSpades


Sorry I still dont buy it. The media would get wind of it one way or another.

How would the hijackers contact a government in the first place? They cant just call up and say 'I want to speak to the President of the United States' or whatever, even if they did the call would be tracked and they would have satellite/ aerial surveillance on top of them within hours.

Besides its downright impractical to keep 239 people detained but still alive for this long. You'd need dozens of guards to keep them in check, youd need food and water, and what if some of them decide to try and escape? Or someone has a heart attack or something? The governments would need to be in reguar contact with these hijackers and would need regular proof of life of the passengers, It only takes one official to take a payment from a media reporter and if it got out that governments knew about this and kept it from the public, there would be huge backlash.

Its just not worth keeping it a secret if that was what is going on, but its too far fetched for me im afraid. Im still saying it crashed.

Cheers Reaper. I'm keeping that in mind



rant removed, sorry grrrr

ranting sorry, cannot delete

Sorry if this is a silly question but, is it remotely possible that the pilot simply got lost? My theory is not based on any specialized knowledge of aircraft or flight software, just simple human nature. Consider this: people occasionally get lost in the woods. Now when such a situation arises, common advice tells us that the lost person should stay put and call for help. But often this is NOT WHAT HAPPENS. In many cases, the lost person will try and locate the path in hope of reaching their destination so no one will ever know they were so stupid as to get lost in the first place. In failing to find the correct path, they make additional navigational changes and eventually get so far from the trail that they panic, and run.

Apply this to an airline pilot who makes a navigational error. Such a situation might be a career-ending mistake, so it's conceivable the pilot may avoid radioing for help and try to get back on course as soon as possible, in hopes of landing at the correct destination, just a little bit late. There's just one problem with this: the transponder, ACARS, data recorder, and maybe even the basic navigation equipment will give away the pilot's navigation error, so the pilot may want to turn those things off....

reply to post by Flatwoods


It is possible - large, modern aircraft have got "lost" before and put down at incorrect airports and pilots can get disoriented and do some crazy things sometimes..

Until they find out where it is, anything is possible at this point.