Quote Originally Posted by AmericanPride View Post
Here's another question, inspired by Biggus' comments: what explains the lack of communication from the passengers? From the last communication at the point of diversion, the aircraft proceeded West over the Malaysian Peninsula. I'm assuming that had messages or phone calls been sent, that would have been the window - if there was a takeover of the aircraft or mechanical problems of any kind noticeable by the passengers, I think it's a reasonable assumption that a message of any kind may have escaped before the aircraft reached the Indian Ocean. Again, citing 9/11, many passengers and crew made phone calls to family, friends, and even the airline company from the cabin within minutes of the hi-jacking. MH370 had seven hours from its last communication.

So, (1) either the passengers were not aware of the diversion, (2) or the passengers did not have access to their communication devices (was there wifi or airphones available on the flight?). If (2), then actions from the hi-jackers would suggest either the communication devices were collected or the passengers were sufficiently intimidated or monitored. That, in turn, would suggest a fairly sized team of perpetrators; at least one to fly the plane and several more to monitor and control the passengers. Even with 4 hi-jackers on a flight during 9/11, many passengers/crew still managed to make phone calls within minutes of the event.
Well, it was a red-eye flight over a great deal of terrain that lacked mobile phone towers. In-cabin SATCOM was unavailable, and even if it was available, both it and onboard wifi (which would probably be unavailable anyway) is something that can be disabled in the cockpit in such a way as to not arouse real suspicions. It's probably also not terribly hard to do a 'this is your Captain speaking, we've encounted a delay at Beijing and we'll be up here for a couple more hours' type of message and not have too many questions asked.

Also worth mentioning that in parts of Southeast Asia, it's not hard to acquire a mobile phone blocker.

But yes, there are times when voice contact by phone is possible from an airliner. It's not perfect, it's very hit-and-miss, and text contact would be far far easier to do with any reliability whilst conveying any meaning.