Airliner Missing

[Dolan50]

Missing jet: Not a hijacking but 'deliberate' action, PM says
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/15/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/

"(CNN) -- The Malaysian Prime Minister stopped short of calling the disappearance of Flight 370 a hijacking, but he said Saturday that the jet veered off course, likely due to deliberate action taken by someone aboard.

With that revelation on Day 8, the search for the missing Malaysian Airlines plane refocused on the crew and passengers and widened to a larger swath of geography.

The passenger jetliner disappeared March 8, en route from the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, China.

"Evidence is consistent with someone acting deliberately from inside the plane," Prime Minister Najib Razak said, officially confirming the plane's disappearance was not caused by an accident.

"Despite media reports that the plane was hijacked, we are investigating all major possibilities on what caused MH370 to deviate," he said.

Military radar showed the jetliner flew in a westerly direction back over the peninsula before turning northwest toward the Bay of Bengal or southwest into the Indian Ocean, Najib said.

"Up until the point at which it left military primary radar coverage, these movements are consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane," he said.

Investigators, he said, have confirmed by looking at the raw satellite data that the plane in question was the Malaysia Airlines jet.

The same conclusion was reached by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, the British Air Accidents Investigation Branch and the Malaysian authorities, all of whom were working separately with the same data, he said."

Looks like they ruled out mechanical failure in favor of something even more sinister.

[Dolan50]

The plot thickens and why is this information just being released now!

Court told of plot by Malaysians to hijack plane
http://www.thesundaily.my/news/987389


Posted on 16 March 2014 - 09:47pm
"PETALING JAYA: A British newspaper published a report today that evidence of a plot by Malaysian religious extremists to hijack a passenger jet in a 9/11-style attack is being investigated in connection with the disappearance of MH370.

The Telegraph quoted a convicted al-Qaeda member as telling a court in London last 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.

It said security experts had said the evidence from Saajid Badat, a British-born Muslim from Gloucester, was
"credible".

The Telegraph quoted him as saying 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.

In evidence in a court case last Tuesday, Saajid was quoted as saying that he had been instructed at a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan to give a shoe bomb to the Malaysians.

Giving evidence at the trial in New York of Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Osama bin Laden's son-in-law, Saajid said: "I gave one of my shoes to the Malaysians. I think it was to access the cockpit."

The newspaper, which said that Saajid, who spoke via video link and is in hiding in the UK, had told the court that the Malaysian plot was being masterminded by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the principal architect of 9/11.

"According to Saajid, Khalid kept a list of the world's tallest buildings and crossed out New York's Twin Towers (of the World Trade Centre) after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks with hijacked airliners as 'a joke to make us laugh'," it said.

According to the newspaper, Saajid told the court that he had asked some of those behind the alleged plot if he could give them "one of my bombs to open a cockpit door?".

It said Saajid, who was jailed for 13 years in 2005 for his part in a conspiracy with the "shoe bomber" Richard Reid to blow up a transatlantic jet, had given similar evidence in 2012.

The Telegraph said that in other words, Saajid's claims were first made long before the disappearance of Flight MH370."

How is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed able to mastermind this plot?
He has been in US custody for over a decade and has been in Guantanamo since 2006.

[endfire79]

they all shoed have known   (baddly hidden pun)

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

Put a sock in it, this is no time for jokes.  :-X

I tend to think satellites would have found the crash. That is one hell of a truck bomb if they still have control.

[JasonPratt]

All right, here's a crazy idea: hijackers took the plane and landed it somewhere in order to use it again later. Passengers are offloaded and then later shot (or whatever) once they're somewhere easy to kill.

Still doesn't explain the black box(es) exactly, which had to be turned off at some point in the air.

[Dolan50]

All right, here's a crazy idea: hijackers took the plane and landed it somewhere in order to use it again later. Passengers are offloaded and then later shot (or whatever) once they're somewhere easy to kill.

Still doesn't explain the black box(es) exactly, which had to be turned off at some point in the air.

"The Wall Street Journal has released a report saying "some senior U.S. officials believe that the plane may have been taken as part of a 'dry run' for a future terrorist attack, testing the ability to take a plane and hide it from radar and satellites."

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/malaysia-airlines-flight-370-former-deputy-cia-director-mike-morell-says-plane-likely-flew-south/


"Though Morell said it's a possibility, he said it's unlikely someone would do something of this magnitude as a test.

"If you were able to get control of an aircraft, you would use it immediately," Morell said."

Mike Morell is a former Deputy Director of the CIA .

[Gusington]

Save it for later...that is crazytalk. So crazy that it may just be viable.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

If they pack an entire hold, plus 200lbs on every seat with high explosive, it would be like a tactical nuke.

I guess everyone will start putting strong hidden GPS transmitters into their fleets.

[JasonPratt]

I just realized Mr. B called it once post before I did; sorry.  :)

It wouldn't even need to be high explosives. As a kinetic weapon + jet fuel it would be devastating in the right circumstances (e.g. 9/11, Clancy's Debt of Honor). Though sure, HE would help. On most radars it would show up as an IFF squawk.

IT COULD BE FLYING OVER MY HEAD RIGH-- -------

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

If you always plan for the worst, you usually get a pleasant surprise.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

"Whoever did this must have had lots of aircraft knowledge, would have deliberately planned this, had nerves of steel to be confident enough to get through primary radar without being detected and been confident enough to control an aircraft full of people," a veteran airline captain told Reuters.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/17/us-malaysia-airlines-disappearance-insig-idUSBREA2G14020140317

[GDS_Starfury]

It collided with the SHIELD flying carrier in a cloud bank.  the real problem is that carrier was tracking Godzilla.

[bayonetbrant]

Best explanation I've heard yet, from another pilot

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/

A Startlingly Simple Theory About the Missing Malaysia Airlines Jet

There has been a lot of speculation about Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Terrorism, hijacking, meteors. I cannot believe the analysis on CNN; it's almost disturbing. I tend to look for a simpler explanation, and I find it with the 13,000-foot runway at Pulau Langkawi.

We know the story of MH370: A loaded Boeing 777 departs at midnight from Kuala Lampur, headed to Beijing. A hot night. A heavy aircraft. About an hour out, across the gulf toward Vietnam, the plane goes dark, meaning the transponder and secondary radar tracking go off. Two days later we hear reports that Malaysian military radar (which is a primary radar, meaning the plane is tracked by reflection rather than by transponder interrogation response) has tracked the plane on a southwesterly course back across the Malay Peninsula into the Strait of Malacca.

When I heard this I immediately brought up Google Earth and searched for airports in proximity to the track toward the southwest.

The left turn is the key here. Zaharie Ahmad Shah was a very experienced senior captain with 18,000 hours of flight time. We old pilots were drilled to know what is the closest airport of safe harbor while in cruise. Airports behind us, airports abeam us, and airports ahead of us. They're always in our head. Always. If something happens, you don't want to be thinking about what are you going to do–you already know what you are going to do. When I saw that left turn with a direct heading, I instinctively knew he was heading for an airport. He was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi, a 13,000-foot airstrip with an approach over water and no obstacles. The captain did not turn back to Kuala Lampur because he knew he had 8,000-foot ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier toward Langkawi, which also was closer.

Take a look at this airport on Google Earth. The pilot did all the right things. He was confronted by some major event onboard that made him make an immediate turn to the closest, safest airport.

For me, the loss of transponders and communications makes perfect sense in a fire. And there most likely was an electrical fire. In the case of a fire, the first response is to pull the main busses and restore circuits one by one until you have isolated the bad one. If they pulled the busses, the plane would go silent. It probably was a serious event and the flight crew was occupied with controlling the plane and trying to fight the fire. Aviate, navigate, and lastly, communicate is the mantra in such situations.

There are two types of fires. An electrical fire might not be as fast and furious, and there may or may not be incapacitating smoke. However there is the possibility, given the timeline, that there was an overheat on one of the front landing gear tires, it blew on takeoff and started slowly burning. Yes, this happens with underinflated tires. Remember: Heavy plane, hot night, sea level, long-run takeoff. There was a well known accident in Nigeria of a DC8 that had a landing gear fire on takeoff. Once going, a tire fire would produce horrific, incapacitating smoke. Yes, pilots have access to oxygen masks, but this is a no-no with fire. Most have access to a smoke hood with a filter, but this will last only a few minutes depending on the smoke level. (I used to carry one in my flight bag, and I still carry one in my briefcase when I fly.)

What I think happened is the flight crew was overcome by smoke and the plane continued on the heading, probably on George (autopilot), until it ran out of fuel or the fire destroyed the control surfaces and it crashed. You will find it along that route–looking elsewhere is pointless.

more at the link, but you get the gist of it

[MikeGER]

makes perfect sense ...and need no spooky stuff at all :)

[Gusington]

Where's the wreckage then? The path described above must have been flown over and sailed by 1000 times by now.