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Thread: Airliner missing between Malaysia and Cambodia/Vietnam, terrorism possible

  1. #141
    Council Member carl's Avatar
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    Calling JMM 99.

    Mike, this is an idle question but I'm curious. Can the flight crew hi-jack their own airplane? They are the final authority on what the plane does and where it goes while it is in the air and can always argue flight safety. They can be charged with stealing the airplane and kidnapping I suppose once they land but can they be charged with hi-jacking?
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    Council Member TheCurmudgeon's Avatar
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    More information: http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2...atellite-data/

    Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared from civilian radar at 1:21 a.m. on March 8 over the Gulf of Thailand. Just two minutes before that, the co-pilot, Fariq Abdul Hamid, had said a routine goodnight over the radio to the control tower in Kuala Lumpur, where the plane had taken off 40 minutes earlier. If there was anything amiss, Fariq’s voice didn’t betray it. Was he hiding malicious intentions well? If he was innocent, was someone else in the cockpit at that very moment, forcing him at the point of a weapon of some kind to feign calm? Or did someone take control of the plane immediately after that last goodnight and shut off the plane’s transponder in a carefully planned hijacking, just as the plane was exiting Malaysian airspace?

    The problem is that none of these theories are especially plausible. So far, Malaysian authorities have searched Fariq’s home and that of the captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah. Their personal histories don’t suggest they were dangerous people, though that investigation is not yet concluded. On the other hand, if there were sophisticated hijackers aboard the plane who knew exactly when the plane would be flying out of range of Malaysian civilian radar, then what were their goals? Why hasn’t anyone heard from the plane in more than a week?
    What are the odds that the Malaysian radar tracking is wrong and we are all chasing ghosts?
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  3. #143
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
    What are the odds that the Malaysian radar tracking is wrong and we are all chasing ghosts?
    Wouldn't surprise me at all. This whole thing is about chasing ghosts, nobody seems to know anything for sure. That is why we should stick with the backrounds of all the people involved, the hardware answers just don't seem to be working out.

  4. #144
    Council Member TheCurmudgeon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by slapout9 View Post
    Wouldn't surprise me at all. This whole thing is about chasing ghosts, nobody seems to know anything for sure. That is why we should stick with the backrounds of all the people involved, the hardware answers just don't seem to be working out.
    I would agree with you. I will admit I am, perhaps unnecessarily, interested in this incident. I wish I knew more about the key players, but I also realize that I am just a spectator.

    I keep coming back to what I term my "worst case scenario" - that the plane was stolen (and all aboard who were not in on the plan, killed) in order to use it to fly something big and nasty into the US. The saving grace seems to be that, from what I can tell, even if fully refueled, it could not make it to the US from, lets say, Pakistan. (Sorry to everyone in London, I am pretty sure it could reach you.)

    Again, it is probably just the Irish Whiskey speaking, but I do have a small concern that this plane could be used to devastating effect as part of a larger plan.
    Last edited by TheCurmudgeon; 03-17-2014 at 09:55 PM.
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  5. #145
    Council Member TheCurmudgeon's Avatar
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    More news that makes things less clear.

    Malaysian authorities, in the latest of a series of U-turns, reversed themselves Monday on a key detail of what happened in the cockpit of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in the minutes before it vanished from civilian radar nine days ago.

    The government had previously said that a key satellite communications system had been disabled some time before the cockpit made final radio contact with air traffic control — and before the plane disappeared from civilian radar contact with 239 passengers and crew on board.

    That sequence of events suggested that something suspicious was already underway before that final radio call was made, and that one or both pilots were either involved in a plot to commandeer the Boeing 777 or acting under duress.

    But authorities acknowledged Monday that they do not know exactly when that data system went dark, making it harder to pinpoint when the suspected act of hijacking or sabotage was initiated.

    The new disclosure does not change the criminal nature of the probe into the missing airliner — an investigation that now has countries from Australia to Kazakhstan scouring radar and satellite data for signs of the plane, and deploying sea and air search teams to hunt for evidence of the aircraft. It still appears likely that somebody was trying to cover their tracks as the plane was deliberately flown off-course.

  6. #146
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    Quote Originally Posted by slapout9 View Post
    Wouldn't surprise me at all. This whole thing is about chasing ghosts, nobody seems to know anything for sure. That is why we should stick with the backrounds of all the people involved, the hardware answers just don't seem to be working out.
    True enough, though if anything really interesting or suspect has been found out about any of the people, it has yet to be revealed... which is of course not surprising.

    Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
    I keep coming back to what I term my "worst case scenario" - that the plane was stolen (and all aboard who were not in on the plan, killed) in order to use it to fly something big and nasty into the US. The saving grace seems to be that, from what I can tell, even if fully refueled, it could not make it to the US from, lets say, Pakistan. (Sorry to everyone in London, I am pretty sure it could reach you.)
    I just can't see how you'd get it to Pakistan, or any similar place. To fly it to Pakistan you'd have to cross India and/or China, and how do you do that without triggering some kind of alert? Given the combination of having to fly through heavily watched airspace, finding a place to land, refuel, and take off again undetected... it just doesn't come off as very probable, at least not without active complicity from one or more governments..

    If I had to guess, I'd guess somebody had a plan, and it failed catastrophically, leading to the plane cruising off over and eventually into the ocean. It would not be a guess with a very high confidence level, but at this point none of them have a very high confidence level.
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  7. #147
    Council Member TheCurmudgeon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dayuhan View Post
    True enough, though if anything really interesting or suspect has been found out about any of the people, it has yet to be revealed... which is of course not surprising.


    I just can't see how you'd get it to Pakistan, or any similar place. To fly it to Pakistan you'd have to cross India and/or China, and how do you do that without triggering some kind of alert? Given the combination of having to fly through heavily watched airspace, finding a place to land, refuel, and take off again undetected... it just doesn't come off as very probable, at least not without active complicity from one or more governments..
    You would have to trace the route of a normal commercial airline. For all intents and purposes it would look like a normal commercial airline. Flown close enough to a plane already on that route, it could look like an echo.

    Yes, there would be complicity from Pakistan (or elements in the Pakistani security services who are pissed about the murder of bin Laden), but I am not sure that is really a stretch.
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    Re: possibility of the pilot being homosexual. Somewhere earlier today I read that his wife and children moved out of their home the day before the flight disappeared, but as with everything surrounding this, hard facts seem tough to come by.

    ETA: Wife and kids moving out mentioned here:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...detection.html

    Maybe he came out, they moved out and instead of going to prison he ended it in protest? Although, it's curious that it has been disclosed that they had moved out, but no explanation is given. Why the secrecy?

    I have been catching up on this discussion in bits and pieces so forgive me if it has already been mentioned, but has anyone mentioned possibility of testing an exploit of whatever the exact vulnerability mentioned here is:

    https://www.federalregister.gov/arti...ctronic-system
    Last edited by anotherguy; 03-18-2014 at 12:39 AM.

  9. #149
    Council Member wm's Avatar
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    Default 3-4 Tonnes of Mangosteens and Terrorist Hijackers?

    Is air freight the best way to ship such a quantity of mangosteens? This seems rather odd. Smells more like smuggling than terror to me

    Why should one take the last Malaysian military report so seriously? the heading could easily be exactly 180 degrees wrong, if it even was the right aircraft.

    Simple answer for the lack of passenger contacts--they and the cabin crew all were killed--either gassed or died of anoxia when cabin was depressurized and no O2 flowed from masks.

    My guess is that the first officer (maybe the captain was also involved) got paid off to deliver something somewhere that was loaded as mangosteens--gold or drugs, for example. Perhaps Malaysian radar post was also paid off. Once delivery was made the airplane was no longer needed.

    I seem to remember that the western Sahara has been the site of many "lost" aircraft landings from drug smugglers flying over from South America.
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  10. #150
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    Default And calling all ships at sea ...

    Answer in first paragraph of Airplane Hijacking - Wiki:

    Aircraft hijacking (also known as aircraft piracy, especially within the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States, and informally as skyjacking) is the unlawful seizure of an aircraft by an individual or a group. In most cases, the pilot is forced to fly according to the orders of the hijackers. Occasionally, however, the hijackers have flown the aircraft themselves, such as the September 11 attacks of 2001. In at least three cases, the plane was hijacked by the official pilot or co-pilot.[1][2][3][4]

    1. China Airlines Flight 334

    2. "Air China pilot hijacks his own jet to Taiwan". CNN. 1998-10-28. Archived from the original on 2008-03-21. Retrieved 2007-01-25.

    3. B. Raman (2000-01-02). "PLANE HIJACKING: IN PERSPECTIVE". South Asia Analysis Group. Retrieved 2007-01-25.

    4. Ethiopian Airlines ET702 hijacking
    Legalisms are in footnote 3.

    Regards

    Mike

  11. #151
    Council Member Dayuhan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
    You would have to trace the route of a normal commercial airline. For all intents and purposes it would look like a normal commercial airline. Flown close enough to a plane already on that route, it could look like an echo.
    I don't think it would be that simple. A radar contact without transponder data or contact with air traffic controllers is an anomaly and would trigger a response almost anywhere, even on a standard route: people do remember 9/11. Biggus would know more about it than I, but I don't think you could fly close enough to another plane to look like an echo without triggering some serious alarm and complaint from the pilots of the plane you were shadowing.

    Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
    Yes, there would be complicity from Pakistan (or elements in the Pakistani security services who are pissed about the murder of bin Laden), but I am not sure that is really a stretch.
    You'd still have to get it across India or China, and hide it. It's not the easiest thing to hide.

    Quote Originally Posted by anotherguy View Post
    Re: possibility of the pilot being homosexual. Somewhere earlier today I read that his wife and children moved out of their home the day before the flight disappeared, but as with everything surrounding this, hard facts seem tough to come by.

    ETA: Wife and kids moving out mentioned here:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...detection.html

    Maybe he came out, they moved out and instead of going to prison he ended it in protest?
    London tabloids are notoriously unreliable sources.

    The only reason anyone has suggested for believing that the pilot is gay was that someone somewhere extrapolated support for Anwar Ibrahim into "support for homosexuality", which of course we all know means you must be gay. If support for the PKR makes someone gay, there's a whole lot of gay people in KL.

    Of course it's not impossible (few things are at this point), but there's also been no even marginally credible basis proposed for the theory.

    Quote Originally Posted by wm View Post
    Is air freight the best way to ship such a quantity of mangosteens? This seems rather odd. Smells more like smuggling than terror to me
    It's the only way; they are perishable. This is very very common, there's high demand for tropical fruit in NE Asia, and flights from SE Asia to Japan, Korea, and northern China routinely carry large shipments of fruit.

    Quote Originally Posted by wm View Post
    My guess is that the first officer (maybe the captain was also involved) got paid off to deliver something somewhere that was loaded as mangosteens--gold or drugs, for example. Perhaps Malaysian radar post was also paid off. Once delivery was made the airplane was no longer needed.
    Seems a very complicated way to smuggle something, and very risky as well.
    “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dayuhan View Post

    London tabloids are notoriously unreliable sources.
    Absolutely. That's not where I originally saw it. just can't find the original link and don't recall the source.

  13. #153
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    A bit more on the pilot... doesn't exactly come off looking like a criminal mastermind or a nut case.

    http://www.sfgate.com/business/bloom...558.php#page-1

    http://qz.com/188723/seven-things-we...net-footprint/

    http://www.news.com.au/world/malaysi...-1226857201698

    The tabloids are making a big deal of the fact that the pilots are being investigated, which seems natural and inevitable under the circumstances. If anything incriminating or suspicious has come up, it has not been released.

    From WSJ:

    http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...753452924.html

    Capt. Zaharie's family left their home in a gated community--located about an hour's drive from Kuala Lumpur--on March 8 after news came in that Flight 370 had gone missing, according to one of the estate's security guards. However, asked at Sunday's news briefing if Capt. Zaharie's family had moved out of their home, Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said that wasn't the case.

    Mr. Fariq's family meanwhile has remained at home in another suburb, roughly 10 minutes' drive from Capt. Zaharie's home, but have shunned media attention, according to a neighbor.
    "Left the home" can easily just mean they went to a relative's house, or any number of other things. it doesn't mean they moved out. Jumping from there to the supposition that the pilot was gay, based on noo evidence beyond his support for the PKR, seems pretty far off the page. Of course personal stress and the completely unpredictable action can never be discounted... but again, if there's anything even vaguely suspicious in the picture, it has not been made public.
    “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”

    H.L. Mencken

  14. #154
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    Default I Am The One You Are Looking For...

    Quote Originally Posted by anotherguy View Post
    Re: possibility of the pilot being homosexual. Somewhere earlier today I read that his wife and children moved out of their home the day before the flight disappeared, but as with everything surrounding this, hard facts seem tough to come by.

    ETA: Wife and kids moving out mentioned here:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...detection.html

    Maybe he came out, they moved out and instead of going to prison he ended it in protest? Although, it's curious that it has been disclosed that they had moved out, but no explanation is given. Why the secrecy?

    I have been catching up on this discussion in bits and pieces so forgive me if it has already been mentioned, but has anyone mentioned possibility of testing an exploit of whatever the exact vulnerability mentioned here is:

    https://www.federalregister.gov/arti...ctronic-system
    I brought that up based upon some reports coming from other sources. I believed then and still do this was a Pilot suicide. He was either extremely embarrassed or possibly being blackmailed based upon some deep personal secret he has (homosexuality,etc.).

    anotherguy Also don't feel bad about joining the thread late, more points of view are always good for discussion, which is what the council is all about. So keep contributing.

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    Quote Originally Posted by AmericanPride View Post
    Well... as far as a dry run... wouldn't it be important for the plane to at least be found so that assessments could be made about how difficult it was to penetrate security, seize the aircraft, etc? If this was a dry run, the perpetrators would only know the external search and rescue response.
    Unless they had independent comms equipment. Then they'd have feedback, the adequacy of which I can't really say - I haven't thought too hard about it.

    Quote Originally Posted by slapout9 View Post
    Finally somebody gets it. You are absolutely correct!!!!! trying to use logic when dealing with criminals,terrorist,etc. is total foolishness. To try and use logic and reason on a criminal is just totally "rancid"
    I disagree that logic an reason aren't relevant, particularly if someone is calculatedly stealing an aircraft and disappearing. It doesn't account for every single possibility, but it's a good place to start.

    Quote Originally Posted by slapout9 View Post
    Wouldn't surprise me at all. This whole thing is about chasing ghosts, nobody seems to know anything for sure. That is why we should stick with the backrounds of all the people involved, the hardware answers just don't seem to be working out.
    You sure about that? The hardware answers are incredibly compelling. We now know that the ACARS radio links were not disabled before last voice contact. We've got a radar track that shows the aircraft turning off to the best possible shot at a safe landing at Langkawi and a bunch of stuff that looks like shutting down systems in the cockpit to eliminate a fire, which they may have managed to do, but not before succumbing to asphyxia or hypoxia.

    The hardware answers look far less like terrorism.

    Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
    More news that makes things less clear.
    This is what I was saying yesterday. ACARS radio links weren't disabled prior to last voice contact.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dayuhan View Post
    I don't think it would be that simple. A radar contact without transponder data or contact with air traffic controllers is an anomaly and would trigger a response almost anywhere, even on a standard route: people do remember 9/11. Biggus would know more about it than I, but I don't think you could fly close enough to another plane to look like an echo without triggering some serious alarm and complaint from the pilots of the plane you were shadowing.
    Wouldn't happen. The transponder not only squawks a pre-designated code for the flight based upon the ATC's instruction, but it also has it's own embedded identification that can't be changed. If there's an aircraft on my primary radar without a transponder, I'm going to make contact one way or another. Normally, you'd expect voice and then either compliance or a declared emergency. If declared emergency, I'd be getting the ACARS data.

    If we're talking about flying in close formation to hide your blip inside someone else's blip, that's marginally more likely than being abducted by aliens. It's physically possible to formate on another airliner-type airframe (ever seen a KC-135 refuelling an E-3?), but to hold it there for hours would be difficult, and primary radar would show an even bigger return. To use a crude analogy, the return that the radar operators would see wouldn't be like the normal Rosie O'Donnell sized blip, it'd look like Rosie O'Donnell carrying another Rosie O'Donnell on her shoulders. If I were Malaysia or Thailand, I might not be scrambling my interceptors, but if I were Vietnam, China, India and possibly even Pakistan, I'd be doing something about it.

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    Anyone know where the Sabalan and Kharg are currently in their trip to the US east coast?
    Last edited by anotherguy; 03-18-2014 at 05:39 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by anotherguy View Post
    Anyone know where the Sabalan and Kharg are currently in their trip to the US east coast?
    There's this report.
    “An Australian AP-3C Orion encountered an Iranian frigate during a routine Operation Gateway patrol on 10 March 2013,” said a Defence Department spokesperson.

    The Iranian Navy ships were reportedly heading home after a port visit to Zhangjiagang in China and were nearing Sri Lanka when they were intercepted by the Australian aircraft.

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    NYT is reporting that first turn that diverted the plane was made via entry into the computer system and not manually.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/wo...AA1F11&gwt=pay

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    Quote Originally Posted by anotherguy View Post
    NYT is reporting that first turn that diverted the plane was made via entry into the computer system and not manually.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/wo...AA1F11&gwt=pay
    Still neither here nor there in terms of hijacking vs mechanical issue. Simply punching in the change for the nearest airfields and beginning a movement towards them would look like that.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Biggus View Post
    There's this report.
    That's from 2013. This is what I am referring too:

    http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/...se-for-concern

    I think the plane is underwater, but the potential of the world seeing it airborne again as a weapon exists until disproven.

    Definitely reaching, but these ships were laughed off by everyone when their mission was announced. Their public statement that "the mission has a message" is laughable unless the message is to get a tetanus booster. Why send two easily-sunk ships including your largest supply ship to our coast?

    As I said, definitely reaching, but I was looking at available information about passengers on board and got to thinking about the two Iranians with stolen passports and what other moves Iran has been making in the world.

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