Airliner missing between Malaysia and Cambodia/Vietnam, terrorism possible

[Dayuhan]

WSJ has now issued a correction to the previous link... same link as above, but at the bottom of the page:

U.S. investigators suspect Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 flew for hours past the time it reached its last confirmed location, based on an analysis of signals sent through the plane's satellite-communication link designed to automatically transmit the status of onboard systems, according to people familiar with the matter. An earlier version of this article and an accompanying graphic incorrectly said investigators based their suspicions on signals from monitoring systems embedded in the plane's Rolls-Royce PLC engines and described that process.

There's also this:

In a CNN appearance on Thursday, the former National Transportation Safety Board vice-chairman Bob Frances called the WSJ story “remarkable”. In an interview with the Washington Post, he said:

“Andy Pasztor is a very reputable journalist who knows his stuff in aviation as much as anyone. For him to create this article out of whole cloth for me stretches credulity … So you don’t know where to go. I would go with what Andy said because I have great faith in him and he doesn’t have any political ax to grind, as do the Malaysians.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...0-media-claims

From the same link:

the signal came not from the engines but from a “satellite-communication link designed to automatically transmit the status of some onboard systems”. The paper is standing by the substance of its story, though, and Reuters and CNN are also quoting unnamed sources as saying that “pings” continued after 1.07am, with Reuters explaining:

The ‘pings’ equated to an indication that the aircraft’s maintenance troubleshooting systems were ready to communicate with satellites if needed, but no links were opened because Malaysia Airlines and others had not subscribed to the full troubleshooting service

and this, which is interestimng:

Two U.S. officials tell ABC News the U.S. believes that the shutdown of two communication systems happened separately on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. One source said this indicates the plane did not come out of the sky because of a catastrophic failure.

The data reporting system, they believe, was shut down 1:07 a.m. The transponder -- which transmits location and altitude -- shut down at 1:21 a.m.

This indicates it may well have been a deliberate act, ABC News aviation consultant John Nance said.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ry?id=22894802

That would seem to indicate either coercion or pilot complicity, but at this point there's nowhere near enough information out to support anything but speculation.

The combination of the satellite pings and the time gap between the system shutdowns suggest there's more going on than was originally told, and that the Malaysian government is either not so well informed or has been holding back information. It's interesting that this stuff is coming from the US side. It does certainly suggest that the potential search area is, as David points out, a whole lot larger than initially thought.

I have heard nothing at all about cargo.

There has been some speculation that nations in the area are hesitant to reveal military radar data as it might mean revealing information about their capacities (or lack thereof) that they would rather keep private.

I wonder if there's some reason why the transponders can be manually shut off, rather than operating automatically any time the plane is airborne. I suspect that this may change, as it seems an invitation to problems.