Airliner missing between Malaysia and Cambodia/Vietnam, terrorism possible

[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]

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).

[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]

Something may have been found.

New Commission takes thriller disappearing fatal Boeing 777 as reportedly the Greek ship "Elka Athina 'interests shipowner Karnezi took position on the existence of objects at sea in the Straits of Malacca!

Specifically, a few hours ago got a message from a coastal station of Indonesia with position: width 0551 length 09657.5 northern and eastern that found in suitcases belonging to passengers probably fatal flight of Malaysia Airlines.

Master of Elka Athina is Dimitris Zampelis and second officer Dimitris Karagiannis.
Department news defencenet.gr

Edit: For some reason, the direct link doesn't work. There's a story under the main story with Elka Athina in the title, that should take you to the right spot.

[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]

Another question on fuel load and range...
\
It's been reported that after the the initial loss of contact the aircraft climbed quickly to 45,000 ft before descending. I assume that rapid ascent would be a fuel-intensive maneuver, but what impact would that have on expected flying time/range?

[Biggus]

Another question on fuel load and range...
\
It's been reported that after the the initial loss of contact the aircraft climbed quickly to 45,000 ft before descending. I assume that rapid ascent would be a fuel-intensive maneuver, but what impact would that have on expected flying time/range?

My understanding is that it is highly unlikely that a zoom climb to 45kft is possible. The same reports seem to indicate a sudden dive to 23kft too. We're talking F-15 performance here. Radar accuracy seems to be imperfect when it comes to tracking altitude.

Other than that, cruising at higher atltitudes tends to be better for fuel burn.

[Biggus]

I've just been made aware that the circuit breakers for the VHF are on the flight deck. SATCOM breakers are in the E&E bay.

But the SATCOM voice and data links can be shut down from the cockpit.

Something doesn't compute here. Why leave the SATCOM data up?

[ganulv]

Radar accuracy seems to be imperfect when it comes to tracking altitude.

Is barometric pressure used in some way to calculate the altitude? I ask because my handheld GPS uses BP to figure elevation, and they are invariably off vis-a-vis benchmarked elevation.

[TheCurmudgeon]

The pilot had his own at-home simulator. That could have given him the ability to practice landings at various runways or to train others how to fly, depending on the capability of the simulator.

Slate is also taking a gander at the idea that the plane was take to be used for something else at a later date.

A chart released by the Malaysia government showed the aircraft’s range of possible positions based on the distance traveled by an electromagnetic ping detected by a satellite over the Indian Ocean at 8:11 a.m., at which point, apparently, the plane was still airborne but nearly out of fuel. It consists of two arcs (shown here in red), the northernmost of which goes from the northern border of Vietnam through western China to the eastern portion of Kyrgyzstan and includes the Chinese province of Xinjiang, heartland of the Uyghur ethnic minority.

A violent separatist Uyghur separatist movement is active in that area. Two weeks ago, eight knife-wielding Uyghur separatists attacked passengers at a train station in Xinjiang, killing 29 people. According to its manifest, 153 of the 227 passengers aboard MH370 are Chinese.

[Biggus]

Is barometric pressure used in some way to calculate the altitude? I ask because my handheld GPS uses BP to figure elevation, and they are invariably off vis--vis benchmarked elevation.

Possibly. Probably. I don't know.

The pilot had his own at-home simulator. That could have given him the ability to practice landings at various runways or to train others how to fly, depending on the capability of the simulator.

Thousands of other high-hour pilots have the same thing. Hell, I have the same thing. It's not something he's hidden, it was all over his Facebook stuff, and he posted regularly within the flight sim community.

There's nothing nefarious about it. The guy loved flying. It's a job where people often love what they do.

[davidbfpo]

Where the plane could land:

Boeing 777s need a runway to be at least 5,000 feet long, limiting the number of possible sites within the 2,200 nautical mile-radius it is believed the plane could have flown from its last known position within the five hours it is thought to have remained airborne:

Or link:http://project.wnyc.org/runways/

[davidbfpo]

Almost as if on demand Sajjad Badat apparently told a US court this week that:

four to five Malaysian men had been planning to take control of a plane, using a bomb hidden in a shoe to blow open the cockpit door....The supergrass said that he had met the Malaysian jihadists – one of whom was a pilot – in Afghanistan and given them a shoe bomb to use to take control of an aircraft.

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ost-plane.html

Consider this - thanks to the article - Badat's meeting was just after 9/11, he has been in custody for sometime and was convicted in 2005, in the UK and has become a "super-grass". Yes, plots can take a long time to come to fruition, but I find this barely credible and am at a loss why he told the US court this snippet. Unless he was briefed to do so.

[Biggus]

Where the plane could land:



Or link:http://project.wnyc.org/runways/

Long range cruise speed for a 777-200 is around 490kn. Max cruise is closer to 510kn. Five hours would add up to 550nm to that radius.

[Biggus]

Almost as if on demand Sajjad Badat apparently told a US court this week that:

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ost-plane.html

Consider this - thanks to the article - Badat's meeting was just after 9/11, he has been in custody for sometime and was convicted in 2005, in the UK and has become a "super-grass". Yes, plots can take a long time to come to fruition, but I find this barely credible and am at a loss why he told the US court this snippet. Unless he was briefed to do so.

Who benefits from the "revelation"?

Why conduct the attack now? Why not wait for something like the meeting at The Hague a couple of weeks from now, or the G20 in Brisbane in November?

I think your last sentence is quite reasonable.