Airliner missing between Malaysia and Cambodia/Vietnam, terrorism possible

[Dayuhan]

This morning's conspiracy theories...

From The Times of India:

Was Malaysia Airlines' Flight 370 hijacked with the chillingly murderous intent of crashing it into a high-value building in an Indian city in a re-run of al-Qaida's 9/11 attack on the US?

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/w...w/32106334.cms

From the Daily Mail:

Doomed airliner pilot was political fanatic: Hours before taking control of flight MH370 he attended trial of jailed opposition leader

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz2w8TI7BVf

The latter might seem more credible if it didn't come from a notoriously unreliable source.

From Biggus:

I was puzzled as to why the remainder of the 40 degree circle was disregarded. I thought there might be an attempt to misdirect our attention away from Africa for whatever reason, but the explanation is much simpler. Here's the apparent answer:

The Malaysian map shows that the SAR team had concluded that the last ping came from somewhere on this 40 degree circle but they ruled out parts of the circle in the far East and also most of the west half of the circle.

A examination of the coverage of the INMARSATs explains this. The last ping must have been picked up by IOR over the Indian Ocean but not by POR over the Pacific or AOR-E over the Atlantic. Hence bits of the red circle are not valid and we end up with the two arcs, also described by the PM as coridoors.

Effectively, had MH370 been at any other point on that circle, it would have been picked up by at least one other satellite.

I was under the impression that the arcs were defined by the distance between the satellite and the aircraft, which was the only information they were able to deduce from the pings. The arcs drawn suggest that the distance remained fairly consistent through the period. Knowing the presumed route, the duration of the flight, and approximate speed might get them somewhere. I haven't seen anyone comparing the duration of the flight (as determined by the pigs, apparently 7 hrs) with the range of the aircraft with the fuel it had loaded. If the two are similar it might suggest that the aircraft flew until it ran out of fuel, a scenario consistent with the "disabled crew" scenarios discussed earlier. The southern arc, with the jet flying off into an empty expanse of ocean, might also be consistent with a disabled crew, possibly after a struggle. Flying a jet off to empty ocean with no possible place to land or attack would to me suggest either a disabled crew or a hijacker is a very disturbed frame of mind, but WTFDIK?

Here's an even weirder one: do the engines ping any time they are running, or only when the plane is airborne? If they sent regular pings for 7 hrs, and the pings remained at a relatively consistent distance from the satellite... could the plane have been on the ground for much or part of that time? It seems most peculiar that for 7 hrs the jet would follow an arc that kept it at a consistent distance from the satellite, but everything about this is most peculiar.

It will be interesting to see what more informed speculations emerge. I assume that the specialist aviation writers are running the new info past their networks and we'll see some analysis emerging by and by.

If it did go down at sea, it will take luck to find it... big piece of ocean, and the wreckage has had a week to disperse and sink.

[Biggus]

I was under the impression that the arcs were defined by the distance between the satellite and the aircraft, which was the only information they were able to deduce from the pings. The arcs drawn suggest that the distance remained fairly consistent through the period. Knowing the presumed route, the duration of the flight, and approximate speed might get them somewhere. I haven't seen anyone comparing the duration of the flight (as determined by the pigs, apparently 7 hrs) with the range of the aircraft with the fuel it had loaded. If the two are similar it might suggest that the aircraft flew until it ran out of fuel, a scenario consistent with the "disabled crew" scenarios discussed earlier. The southern arc, with the jet flying off into an empty expanse of ocean, might also be consistent with a disabled crew, possibly after a struggle. Flying a jet off to empty ocean with no possible place to land or attack would to me suggest either a disabled crew or a hijacker is a very disturbed frame of mind, but WTFDIK?

Here's an even weirder one: do the engines ping any time they are running, or only when the plane is airborne? If they sent regular pings for 7 hrs, and the pings remained at a relatively consistent distance from the satellite... could the plane have been on the ground for much or part of that time? It seems most peculiar that for 7 hrs the jet would follow an arc that kept it at a consistent distance from the satellite, but everything about this is most peculiar.

It will be interesting to see what more informed speculations emerge. I assume that the specialist aviation writers are running the new info past their networks and we'll see some analysis emerging by and by.

If it did go down at sea, it will take luck to find it... big piece of ocean, and the wreckage has had a week to disperse and sink.

The ping arc is certainly one based on deducing the latency of the ping itself, but it's also only based on the 'final' ping. No other information regarding the pings between loss of contact and the final ping have been released. The arc is simply a line of possible points where MH370 issued the final ping, not the route itself.

Regarding whether or not ACARS attempts to check for the presence of a satallite connection on the ground, I do not know. I do know that the ELT is tied into a sensor that detects weight on the landing gear, I know that it would not be overly difficult to build similar functionality into ACARS, but I also know that until now ACARS has not entirely been well understood by many people.

ACARS reports APU status normally when it's reporting back to RR, apparently. A landing, engine shutdown to stop the ACARS pinging, refuel and take off again scenario either requires ground power to start the aircraft, or the APU has to be running when the engines are shut down. I wouldn't discount it if we're looking at a hijacking, the sort of effort that seems to have been gone to would suggest that whatever group was involved would have enough logistical tail to accomplish a landing, fuelling, possible ground power and take off.

There are a few other things to consider. Fuel load would have been enough for a hair over eight hours of flight, including reserves. Now, the way reserves are calculated, part of the calculation is that the aircraft will burn a portion of that reserve in a holding pattern at an alternate airfield in case the original destination is unavailable. In such a holding pattern, fuel burn per distance travelled is higher (an aircraft will burn more fuel travelling at a significantly lower speed and altitude). Using this fuel in cruise would attain significantly greater range. We don't know enough about the fuel load in this case, so it's one of those things to keep in the back of your mind.

[Dayuhan]

The ping arc is certainly one based on deducing the latency of the ping itself, but it's also only based on the 'final' ping. No other information regarding the pings between loss of contact and the final ping have been released. The arc is simply a line of possible points where MH370 issued the final ping, not the route itself.

Wouldn't the flight time tend to disqualify the parts of the arc closest to the latest known sighting, unless of course the aircraft doubled back at some point?

I wouldn't discount it if we're looking at a hijacking, the sort of effort that seems to have been gone to would suggest that whatever group was involved would have enough logistical tail to accomplish a landing, fuelling, possible ground power and take off.

That would be quite an accomplishment, given the extremely rugged and isolated terrain along the northern arc. Even for a fully resourced government it would be an expensive and time-consuming task. These are also not permissive environments for either air or ground movement, and to pull it off without alerting local authority (unless of course local authority is complicit) would be a real challenge.

Assuming a hijack, I'd guess the most probable scenario is a hijacking gone bad, meaning whatever events did not go according to plan and the plane crashed. If whoever did this actually has managed to get the plane on the ground, undetected, and is preparing it for further use... that would be disconcerting, as it would suggest an extraordinarily competent, organized, well prepared group, the kind that is a lot more common in the movies than in real life.

[davidbfpo]

Yesterday I had an outlandish idea, since this thread has raised many points here goes.

If the flight headed into the Indian Ocean there are very few capable landing fields. One comes to mind, Diego Garcia (British Indian Ocean Territory). Which has a large US military presence and presumably regular flights in and out that routinely scan their routes.

I don't think the flight landed there, that really would be outlandish.

[Dayuhan]

When I first saw the map with the north and south arcs I idly wondered whether the southern arc would have entered the radar coverage of Diego Garcia, or of Australian military installations. I don't suppose they'll tell us, though the US suggestions that the southern arc is more probable might possibly based on information they do not wish to specifically divulge.

[Dayuhan]

This one is up there with the alien abduction and supernatural intervention theories...

http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1753.htm

Russia “Puzzled” Over Malaysia Airlines “Capture” By US Navy

A new report circulating in the Kremlin today prepared by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces (GRU) states that Aerospace Defence Forces (VKO) experts remain “puzzled” as to why the United States Navy “captured and then diverted” a Malaysia Airlines civilian aircraft from its intended flight-path to their vast and highly-secretive Indian Ocean base located on the Diego Garcia atoll.

Flight 370 was already under GRU “surveillance” after it received a “highly suspicious” cargo load that had been traced to the Indian Ocean nation Republic of Seychelles, and where it had previously been aboard the US-flagged container ship MV Maersk Alabama.

What first aroused GRU suspicions regarding the MV Maersk Alabama, this report continues, was that within 24-hours of off-loading this “highly suspicious” cargo load bound for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the two highly-trained US Navy Seals assigned to protect it, Mark Daniel Kennedy, 43, and Jeffrey Keith Reynolds, 44, were found dead under “suspicious circumstances.”

Both Kennedy and Reynolds, this report says, were employed by the Virginia Beach, Virginia-based maritime security firm The Trident Group which was founded by US Navy Special Operations Personnel (SEAL’s) and Senior US Naval Surface Warfare Officers and has long been known by the GRU to protect vital transfers of both atomic and biological materials throughout the world.

Upon GRU “assests” confirming that this “highly suspicious” cargo was aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on 8 March, this report notes, Moscow notified China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) of their concerns and received “assurances” that “all measures” would be taken as to ascertain what was being kept so hidden when this aircraft entered into their airspace.

Now where did I put that tinfoil helmet...

[Biggus]

Yesterday I had an outlandish idea, since this thread has raised many points here goes.

If the flight headed into the Indian Ocean there are very few capable landing fields. One comes to mind, Diego Garcia (British Indian Ocean Territory). Which has a large US military presence and presumably regular flights in and out that routinely scan their routes.

I don't think the flight landed there, that really would be outlandish.

I had the exact same though and came to exactly the same conclusion.

When I first saw the map with the north and south arcs I idly wondered whether the southern arc would have entered the radar coverage of Diego Garcia, or of Australian military installations. I don't suppose they'll tell us, though the US suggestions that the southern arc is more probable might possibly based on information they do not wish to specifically divulge.

Very, very unlikely that the JORN network will have much to show, given it's not staffed adequately at the best of times.

Now where did I put that tinfoil helmet...

Speaking of Russians and tinfoil hats, one of my early thoughts was that this might have been a Russian job to take the focus off Crimea.

[Biggus]

Wouldn't the flight time tend to disqualify the parts of the arc closest to the latest known sighting, unless of course the aircraft doubled back at some point?

Not enough open source data to make the call on this. It could be anywhere along that arc, plus or minus 500nm, assuming ACARS remained pinging the satellite for as long as the aircraft remained intact. I would assume that it was closer to the Kazakhstan end than the Myanmar/Laos end.

What is nearly feasible is entering Chinese airspace over Myanmar where I'd expect the air search radars to be the weakest, and fly on the north side of the defences through western China.

That would be quite an accomplishment, given the extremely rugged and isolated terrain along the northern arc. Even for a fully resourced government it would be an expensive and time-consuming task. These are also not permissive environments for either air or ground movement, and to pull it off without alerting local authority (unless of course local authority is complicit) would be a real challenge.

It would be a nearly unthinkable accomplishment. We're talking about a very well prepared makeshift runway in as you say extremely rugged terrain with quantities of fuel that would take literally months to transport and then store on site, with a team of people who know what they're doing in regards to ground power, fuelling, approach guidance and marshalling, not to mention several hijackers who are intimately familiar with approaches to very basic airstrips in the incredibly difficult flying conditions native to the areas we're looking at. All the while, avoiding air search radars and any and all outside contact with the world, verbal, electronic, visual or otherwise.

It's not very likely.

Assuming a hijack, I'd guess the most probable scenario is a hijacking gone bad, meaning whatever events did not go according to plan and the plane crashed. If whoever did this actually has managed to get the plane on the ground, undetected, and is preparing it for further use... that would be disconcerting, as it would suggest an extraordinarily competent, organized, well prepared group, the kind that is a lot more common in the movies than in real life.

I'm not anywhere near ready to accept that the aircrew were involved in the hijacking, if a hijacking is what has occurred. The Captain is political and well educated, but we're talking I-want-more-democracy political, not America-is-the-Great-Satan political. He evidently loved his job, he (like thousands of other pilots) had a pretty incredible home simulator setup which the media seems to think is some sort of indicator of suspicion (because obviously nobody in the media has that sort of passion for their own work), and he's lived in Malaysia long enough to have had plenty to be upset about before in regards to Anwar Ibrahim.

I don't yet know enough about the First Officer to form a proper opinion, but what I've learned thus far has not really raised any red flags to me.

So we're left with the inhabitants of the cabin, including two large parties (Freescale employees and a group of prominent Chinese artists), ten cabin crew (which may not include an MAS engineer assigned to Beijing), a couple of people travelling on false passports and an Uighar gentleman with some previous interest in flight simulation.

My own speculation is as follows, and it is by no means compelling or perfect:

I mentioned previously that part of the E&E bay was accessible from inside the cabin. It requires a proprietary screwdriver design to access, but once accessed, it would be possible to pull all the circuit breakers you could possibly need to shut down the transponder and other various systems (including the VHF component of ACARS) fairly quietly. It'd also be a good opportunity to pull the necessary circuit breaker for the pressurization system. In doing so, you'd have roughly 12 minutes before hypoxia set in, but after that happened (assuming you had bottled air), the aircraft would be all yours.

12 minutes isn't enough time from the shutoff of the transponder to the last ATC voice contact, although not all the breakers need to be pulled at once. I would have expected the cabin pressurization breaker to be the first thing to pull, though. In any case, it's entirely possible for the crew to not know about it, and someone with engineering credentials and an MAS uniform would get access in literally seconds without anyone batting an eyelid.

This all assumes that the passengers aren't the objective, and given the lack of a list of demands, I'd be inclined to believe that this is the case.

Of course, it could be a suicide attempt by a Captain or First Officer, it could be a takeover gone wrong (which would require E&E bay access to kill the transponder and ACARS VHF system 20 minutes prior to the takeover), and it could still be a mechanical disaster (except that saying 'goodnight' to the ATC after the transponder and ACARS VHF system are offline is a worry).

[Dayuhan]

Not enough open source data to make the call on this. It could be anywhere along that arc, plus or minus 500nm, assuming ACARS remained pinging the satellite for as long as the aircraft remained intact. I would assume that it was closer to the Kazakhstan end than the Myanmar/Laos end.

I would assume the same, though getting to the Kazakhstan end of the northern arc would mean flying over Tibet and southern Xinjiang, areas where China faces security issues and is presumably fairly alert. How attentive they are to air traffic already inside the border I do not, of course, know.

I'm not anywhere near ready to accept that the aircrew were involved in the hijacking, if a hijacking is what has occurred. The Captain is political and well educated, but we're talking I-want-more-democracy political, not America-is-the-Great-Satan political. He evidently loved his job, he (like thousands of other pilots) had a pretty incredible home simulator setup which the media seems to think is some sort of indicator of suspicion (because obviously nobody in the media has that sort of passion for their own work), and he's lived in Malaysia long enough to have had plenty to be upset about before in regards to Anwar Ibrahim.

I don't yet know enough about the First Officer to form a proper opinion, but what I've learned thus far has not really raised any red flags to me.

That's how it looked to me as well... which would mean somebody else who knew a whole lot about flying and about that airplane was on board.

My own speculation is as follows, and it is by no means compelling or perfect:

Better than a lot of what's floating around out there...

I mentioned previously that part of the E&E bay was accessible from inside the cabin. It requires a proprietary screwdriver design to access, but once accessed, it would be possible to pull all the circuit breakers you could possibly need to shut down the transponder and other various systems (including the VHF component of ACARS) fairly quietly.

Do you think opening the E&E bay or interfering with circuit breakers would trigger an alert in the cabin?

It'd also be a good opportunity to pull the necessary circuit breaker for the pressurization system. In doing so, you'd have roughly 12 minutes before hypoxia set in, but after that happened (assuming you had bottled air), the aircraft would be all yours.

If someone tried that and made a mistake, could they end up unconscious along with everyone else? Remote, of course, but so is everything else about this.

Still seems to me that either whatever happened either went wrong and produced a catastrophic end, or somebody successfully executed a very audacious and very difficult plan.

This all assumes that the passengers aren't the objective, and given the lack of a list of demands, I'd be inclined to believe that this is the case.

That seems likely to me as well, unless something went wrong before demands could be issued. Theories about an attempt to steal cargo or kidnap a specific passenger would presume an extraordinarily valuable person or cargo, and seem pretty improbable.

Of course, it could be a suicide attempt by a Captain or First Officer, it could be a takeover gone wrong (which would require E&E bay access to kill the transponder and ACARS VHF system 20 minutes prior to the takeover), and it could still be a mechanical disaster (except that saying 'goodnight' to the ATC after the transponder and ACARS VHF system are offline is a worry).

It could be a lot of things, all of them very strange. I still suspect that the eventual explanation will turn out to be less arcane than most of the theories, and will involve a screw up by somebody at some point in the chain... but that's just my nature.

[Biggus]

Do you think opening the E&E bay or interfering with circuit breakers would trigger an alert in the cabin?

Accessing the E&E bay wouldn't have tripped any alarms AFAIK. Disabling the transponder and ACARS VHF systems would open up a few possibilities for the crew to discover and become concerned about. There would be a warning message to notify the crew that the TCAS system which is integrated with the transponder, and this warning would be displayed on the screens in front of the pilots. It could be missed. Maybe. For 20 minutes or more, I don't know. If everything else was normal and this was the only issue to deal with, they'd take action in seconds. If there were other problems to be dealt with, once out of the airway it might become the last item on a long list of other problems to overcome.

I keep coming back to hypoxia and the strange things people do when hypoxic.

If someone tried that and made a mistake, could they end up unconscious along with everyone else? Remote, of course, but so is everything else about this.

Yes, quite easily. In fact, I suspect that even on bottled air, if the aircraft didn't either repressurize or decend fairly rapidly, anyone trying this would probably be in trouble.

That seems likely to me as well, unless something went wrong before demands could be issued. Theories about an attempt to steal cargo or kidnap a specific passenger would presume an extraordinarily valuable person or cargo, and seem pretty improbable.

All we know of the cargo now is that it is not hazardous. There's speculation that the plane was carrying 50 fewer passengers than it normally would because of the weight of the cargo, and there's speculation that the cargo is gold. But I'd expect at least a moderately large number of armed guards and possibly some diplomatic staff to be on board.

It could be a lot of things, all of them very strange. I still suspect that the eventual explanation will turn out to be less arcane than most of the theories, and will involve a screw up by somebody at some point in the chain... but that's just my nature.

I am of the same opinion. In the meantime, we just piece things together as they are released.

[Biggus]

Just noticed something about the timing. My understanding of the sequence of events was off.

ACARS was disabled at 0107, thirteen minutes passed between then and the final voice contact at 0120, and two minutes later, the transponder was switched off. I was under the impression that ACARS and the transponder were disabled at the same time.

The ACARS would bring up a warning, but knowing that the system would cut from VHF to SATCOM would probably result in the crew noticing the warning, checking that the SATCOM data link was still active and possibly disregarding it. It's not critical to the continued ability of the aircraft to remain airborne, so presumably it'd be written up and the ground crews could deal with it later.

Voice contact happens, everything seems more or less normal, two minutes later the transponder is off and the aircraft appears to be leaving the airway.

Seven hours later, the aircraft is still probably airborne somewhere over the southern Indian Ocean or somewhere from Thailand to Kazakhstan.

[Dayuhan]

Accessing the E&E bay wouldn't have tripped any alarms AFAIK. Disabling the transponder and ACARS VHF systems would open up a few possibilities for the crew to discover and become concerned about. There would be a warning message to notify the crew that the TCAS system which is integrated with the transponder, and this warning would be displayed on the screens in front of the pilots. It could be missed. Maybe. For 20 minutes or more, I don't know. If everything else was normal and this was the only issue to deal with, they'd take action in seconds. If there were other problems to be dealt with, once out of the airway it might become the last item on a long list of other problems to overcome.

Does that mean that anyone with the right knowledge and the right screwdriver can access the E&E bay without triggering any kind of alarm? That seems a bit of an oversight on the security side.

All we know of the cargo now is that it is not hazardous. There's speculation that the plane was carrying 50 fewer passengers than it normally would because of the weight of the cargo, and there's speculation that the cargo is gold. But I'd expect at least a moderately large number of armed guards and possibly some diplomatic staff to be on board.

That seems pretty speculative. I've flown around Asia a fair bit, and a flight that's not full generally just means they didn't sell all the tickets. Just on a loose basis... figure 60kg/passenger (predominantly Asian market, relatively small people) plus 20kg luggage/person... displacing 50 passengers gets you roughly 4000 kilos. Lot of gold. Worth a lot of effort to steal, yes, but hard to imagine why anyone would be shipping that around on a commercial airliner.