Malaysian Airlines flight is missing, 239 passengers on board

[TrueGrit]

That just made me watch this again. Favorite ever twilight zone. Awesome.

http://vimeo.com/30119989

[XFACTOR]

USA is now saying it flew on for nearly 4 hours due to the engine data, which I believe comes from rolls Royce health monitoring of all the engines they sell, so the transponder goes off then flies for 4 hours, def hijacking.The report is from the Wall Street journal, and the reporter is known as the best aviation journalist out there.

"U.S. investigators suspect that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 stayed in the air for about four hours past the time it reached its last confirmed location, according to two people familiar with the details, raising the possibility that the plane could have flown on for hundreds of additional miles under conditions that remain murky.
Aviation investigators and national security officials believe the plane flew for a total of five hours based on data automatically downloaded and sent to the ground from the Boeing Co. 777's engines as part of a routine maintenance and monitoring program.

That raises a host of new questions and possibilities about what happened aboard the widebody jet carrying 239 people, which vanished from civilian air-traffic control radar over the weekend, about one hour into a flight to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.
Six days after the mysterious disappearance prompted a massive international air and water search that so far hasn't produced any results, the investigation appears to be broadening in scope.
U.S. counterterrorism officials are pursuing the possibility that a pilot or someone else on board the plane may have diverted it toward an undisclosed location after intentionally turning off the jetliner's transponders to avoid radar detection, according to one person tracking the probe.
The investigation remains fluid, and it isn't clear whether investigators have evidence indicating possible terrorism or espionage. So far, U.S. national security officials have said that nothing specifically points toward terrorism, though they haven't ruled it out.
But the huge uncertainty about where the plane was headed, and why it apparently continued flying so long without working transponders, has raised theories among investigators that the aircraft may have been commandeered for a reason that appears unclear to U.S. authorities. Some of those theories have been laid out to national security officials and senior personnel from various U.S. agencies, according to one person familiar with the matter.
At one briefing, according to this person, officials were told investigators are actively pursuing the notion that the plane was diverted "with the intention of using it later for another purpose."
As of Wednesday it remained unclear whether the plane reached an alternate destination or if it ultimately crashed, potentially hundreds of miles from where an international search effort has been focused.
In those scenarios, neither mechanical problems, pilot mistakes nor some other type of catastrophic incident caused the 250-ton plane to mysteriously vanish from radar.
The latest revelations come as local media reported that Malaysian police visited the home of at least one of the two pilots.
Boeing officials and a Malaysia Airlines official declined to comment.
The engines' onboard monitoring system is provided by their manufacturer, Rolls-Royce PLC, and it periodically sends bursts of data about engine health, operations and aircraft movements to facilities on the ground.
Rolls-Royce couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
As part of its maintenance agreements, Malaysia Airlines transmits its engine data live to Rolls-Royce for analysis. The system compiles data from inside the 777's two Trent 800 engines and transmits snapshots of performance, as well as the altitude and speed of the jet.
Those snippets are compiled and transmitted in 30-minute increments, said one person familiar with the system. According to Rolls-Royce's website, the data is processed automatically "so that subtle changes in condition from one flight to another can be detected."
The engine data is being analyzed to help determine the flight path of the plane after the transponders stopped working. The jet was originally headed for China, and its last verified position was half way across the Gulf of Thailand.
A total flight time of five hours after departing Kuala Lumpur means the Boeing 777 could have continued for an additional distance of about 2,200 nautical miles, reaching points as far as the Indian Ocean, the border of Pakistan or even the Arabian Sea, based on the jet's cruising speed.
Earlier Wednesday, frustrations over the protracted search for the missing plane mounted as both China and Vietnam vented their anger over what they viewed as poor coordination of the effort.
Government conflicts and national arguments over crises are hardly unique to the Flight 370 situation, but some air-safety experts said they couldn't recall another recent instance of governments publicly feuding over search procedures during the early phase of an international investigation.
Authorities radically expanded the size of the search zone Wednesday, which already was proving a challenge to cover effectively, but the mission hadn't turned up much by the end of the fifth day.
Also on Wednesday, a Chinese government website posted images from Chinese satellites showing what it said were three large objects floating in an 8-square-mile area off the southern tip of Vietnam. The objects were discovered on Sunday , according to the website, which didn't say whether the objects had been recovered or examined.
Ten countries were helping to scour the seas around Malaysia, including China, the U.S. and Vietnam. Taiwanese vessels are expected to be on the scene by Friday, with India and Japan having also agreed to join the search soon.
In all, 56 surface ships were taking part in the search, according to statements issued by the contributing governments, with Malaysia providing 27 of them. In addition, 30 fixed-wing aircraft were also searching, with at least 10 shipboard helicopters available, mostly in the waters between Malaysia and Vietnam.
China's government was especially aggrieved. More than 150 of the 239 people on board are Chinese, and family members in Beijing have at times loudly expressed their frustration over the absence of leads.
More than a dozen Chinese diplomats met with Malaysian authorities in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday as tension grew over the search.
"At present there's a lot of different information out there. It's very chaotic and very hard to verify," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in a regular press briefing. "We've said as long as there is a shred of hope, you can't give up."
The day before, Beijing pointedly pressed Malaysia to accelerate its investigation, which has been hampered by false leads on suspected debris and conflicting reports on radar tracking.
Vietnam on Wednesday suspended its search flights after conflicting reports from Malaysia that authorities had tracked the plane to the Strait of Malacca before it disappeared.
Gen. Rodzali Daud, Malaysia's air force chief, denied saying he had told local media that military radar facilities had tracked the plane there, saying they were still examining all possibilities. Vietnam later resumed normal search sweeps.
Malaysian authorities divided the search area into several sectors on either side of the country, as well as areas on land.
The challenge, said Lt. David Levy, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet, isn't so much coordination as the sheer size of the area involved. The search grids are up to 20 miles by 120 miles, and ships and aircraft employ an exhaustive methodical pattern "like mowing your lawn" in their search for the plane, he said.
U.S. defense officials sought to play down any suggestion that the Malaysian government was doing a poor job with the search.
"It is not unusual for searches to take a long time, especially when you are working with limited data," one official said.
Aviation experts say the absence of an electronic signal from the plane before it disappeared from radar screens makes it difficult to pin down possible locations. Some radar data suggested the Boeing 777 might have tried to turn back to Kuala Lumpur before contact was lost, a detail that prompted a search for the plane on both sides of the Malaysian peninsula.
A U.S. Navy P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft has been searching the northern Strait of Malacca, west of Malaysia, while destroyers USS Kidd and USS Pinckney have been deploying helicopters in the Gulf of Thailand to the east.
So far the U.S., like other nations taking part in the search, has had no success. Many aviation experts are concluding that searchers might not have been looking in the right places. Even if the plane broke up in midair, it would have left telltale traces of debris in the ocean. The cracks now emerging between some of the participants in the search could make it even more difficult.
Diplomatic feuds over air disasters have generally erupted over the conclusions of the investigations, long after the initial search is over.
The results of the 1999 crash of an Egyptair Boeing 767 en route to Egypt from New York, which killed 217 people, spawned a dispute between Washington and Cairo that strained ties for years. The National Transportation Safety Board concluded the plane's co-pilot purposely put the twin-engine jet into a steep dive and then resisted efforts by the captain to recover control before the airliner slammed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Nantucket. Egyptian authorities insisted the evidence indicated mechanical failure.
Years earlier, Washington and Paris butted heads over the investigation of an American Eagle commuter turboprop that crashed in 1994 near Roselawn, Ind. The French objected to the NTSB's conclusions that French regulators failed to take actions that could have prevented the accident.
—Jon Ostrower, Trefor Moss, Gaurav Raghuvanshi and Josh Chin contributed to this article.
     
 13th Mar 2014, 05:02      #2607 (permalink)"




China have said the sat shots arnt of the plane in the water

why would you post this? It didn't fly for four hours after dude.

[Nails]

[Kwon_2]

So it flied for four hours afterwards? Interesting.

[Army of One]

why would you post this? It didn't fly for four hours after dude.

Do you believe everything you are fed by Government?The top aviation reporter with arguably the top news reporting company has contacts which are confirming that data sent from the plane is suggesting it was in the air for up to another 4.

It's become a heavily political situation with no country wanting to reveal their tech for tracking and surveillance, so while there is a public show of union for looking for the jet, behind the scenes countries are busy doing the real work independently of each other to look after their own national security first.You are forgetting this is an unprecedented mystery, full passenger planes don't just drop off the face of the earth for 5+ days with nobody knowing where the fuck on earth to look for it.This plane was very purposely detoured and had its transponder turned off from the exact point where Malaysian atc handed over to Vietnemese atc so it could have the max amount of time to disappear before anyone realised it was missing.

This could be part of a further plot against one of the parties searching, so you need to understand that in that climate behind the scenes it's every man for himself to protect their own national security.

An interview with the reporter below.
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/03/13/malaysia-plane-pasztor

[Nails]

why would you post this? It didn't fly for four hours after dude.

its in the wall street journal


http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304914904579434653903086282

[Army of One]

Wsj printed clarification, fits in with why USA sending USS Kidd to Indian Ocean, which is 3 or so hours from Malaysia


"
Corrections & Amplifications
U.S. investigators suspect Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 flew for hours past the time it reached its last confirmed location, based on an analysis of signals sent through the plane's satellite-communication link designed to automatically transmit the status of onboard systems, according to people familiar with the matter. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said investigators based their suspicions on signals from monitoring systems embedded in the plane's Rolls-Royce PLC engines and described that process.
"

[240 is Back]

imagine the pain the families are going thru here... at least if they know it crashed, they could mourn and move on.  Instead it's "will my loved one suddenly show up unharmed from an airport hanger from a week-long hostage situation we never heard about"?

They probably know what happened... just dealing with govt/security/other issues involved. 

Almost everyone just keeps assuming the "news" tells us everything.

[Army of One]

imagine the pain the families are going thru here... at least if they know it crashed, they could mourn and move on.  Instead it's "will my loved one suddenly show up unharmed from an airport hanger from a week-long hostage situation we never heard about"?

They probably know what happened... just dealing with govt/security/other issues involved. 

Almost everyone just keeps assuming the "news" tells us everything.

I'm not sure what planet Xfactor lives on, the very definition of a sheep.The one thing interesting coming from the wsj reporter is speculation the plane may have landed at some point in the 4 hours, the only reason I can think for that is to unload passengers or refuel.What a mindfuck if they found the fuselage but no bodies apart from an expendable pilot.Also the average depth of the Indian Ocean where the USS Kidd is going to look is 13000 feet.....

[Nails]

imagine the pain the families are going thru here... at least if they know it crashed, they could mourn and move on.  Instead it's "will my loved one suddenly show up unharmed from an airport hanger from a week-long hostage situation we never heard about"?

They probably know what happened... just dealing with govt/security/other issues involved. 

Almost everyone just keeps assuming the "news" tells us everything.

[Nails]

i blame it all on the FAA

if it wasnt mandatory to turn off all your electronic devices , once the pilot went low enough a passenger or 2 could of sent out a text message.
its already been proven that cellphone transmissions do not interfere with plane communications

[240 is Back]

I just don't understand why there is ANY way that a pilot can TURN OFF the transponder and suddenly the plane cannot be tracked on radar anymore.  That's exactly what Wolf blitz said on CNN today. 

i mean, the possibilities... hijackers... suicidal pilots... why give the 2 dudes in the cockput the ability to make a plane invisible?  And why doesn't radar work anymore?  I mean, during war, our enemies don't wear transponders lol, and we still see them on radar... this plane sure didn't look like a stealth bomber lol...

if something happened, then there were cell phone texts/calls.  I bet that is the single most important factor here.  Back in the day, the govts could just write up a safe, believable narrative and put it on the news, and 2 days later, the story is old news and we never hear about it again.  Today?   Today, you have a million ways a mystery text could appear from someone on that plane, and voila, the story crumbles. 

it's a weird time we're living in. 

[Army of One]

I just don't understand why there is ANY way that a pilot can TURN OFF the transponder and suddenly the plane cannot be tracked on radar anymore.  That's exactly what Wolf blitz said on CNN today. 

i mean, the possibilities... hijackers... suicidal pilots... why give the 2 dudes in the cockput the ability to make a plane invisible?  And why doesn't radar work anymore?  I mean, during war, our enemies don't wear transponders lol, and we still see them on radar... this plane sure didn't look like a stealth bomber lol...

if something happened, then there were cell phone texts/calls.  I bet that is the single most important factor here.  Back in the day, the govts could just write up a safe, believable narrative and put it on the news, and 2 days later, the story is old news and we never hear about it again.  Today?   Today, you have a million ways a mystery text could appear from someone on that plane, and voila, the story crumbles. 

it's a weird time we're living in. 

Blame the radar not working on the earth being round, if it was flat and had line of sight then you could radar the whole earth with ease.

Apparently the satellite picked up pings every 30 minutes for the four hours, so likely the search will start around the last ping, but that doesn't mean it didnt land or crash on land rather than water.

[Nails]

i thought after 911 , all planes had Reinforced Cockpoit Doors that were impenetrable, and during hostage takeover , under no circumstances were the pilots allowed to open the door, no matter if passengers were getting hacked to pieces.

[tommywishbone]

Pilots still open the cockpit door from time to time. I have seen it many many times since 9/11.

That plane landed somewhere. Not crash landed, landed.

[XFACTOR]

Do you believe everything you are fed by Government?The top aviation reporter with arguably the top news reporting company has contacts which are confirming that data sent from the plane is suggesting it was in the air for up to another 4.

It's become a heavily political situation with no country wanting to reveal their tech for tracking and surveillance, so while there is a public show of union for looking for the jet, behind the scenes countries are busy doing the real work independently of each other to look after their own national security first.You are forgetting this is an unprecedented mystery, full passenger planes don't just drop off the face of the earth for 5+ days with nobody knowing where the fuck on earth to look for it.This plane was very purposely detoured and had its transponder turned off from the exact point where Malaysian atc handed over to Vietnemese atc so it could have the max amount of time to disappear before anyone realised it was missing.

This could be part of a further plot against one of the parties searching, so you need to understand that in that climate behind the scenes it's every man for himself to protect their own national security.

An interview with the reporter below.
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/03/13/malaysia-plane-pasztor

No way that plan flew for 4 hours after.. Between this wrong information and the twitter guy blabbing I'm not sure who the sheep here is you or me

[Nails]

No way that plan flew for 4 hours after.. Between this wrong information and the twitter guy blabbing I'm not sure who the sheep here is you or me

 the plane's engines have an on-board monitoring system supplied by their manufacturer, Rolls-Royce PLC. The system "periodically sends bursts of data about engine health, operations and aircraft movements to facilities on the ground,"


why would Rolls Royce lie 

[Army of One]

the plane's engines have an on-board monitoring system supplied by their manufacturer, Rolls-Royce PLC. The system "periodically sends bursts of data about engine health, operations and aircraft movements to facilities on the ground,"


why would Rolls Royce lie 

It isn't coming from Rolls Royce, that was a mistake from WSJ, its coming from sat linkup to plane.

[Army of One]

No way that plan flew for 4 hours after.. Between this wrong information and the twitter guy blabbing I'm not sure who the sheep here is you or me

So you think that the USA , with the greatest military and surveillance in the world, is choosing to search firstly 3-4 hours away by plane from everyone else for no reason at all?

http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/13/us-orders-uss-kidd-indian-ocean-search-malaysia-pl/

[240 is Back]

Pilots still open the cockpit door from time to time. I have seen it many many times since 9/11.

That plane landed somewhere. Not crash landed, landed.

yeah it's starting to look like that.


And IF it was some terror group doing some terror shit, holding hostages, etc... Maybe it would be SMARTER for the authorities to keep the media OUT of it.  Why give the bad guys the audience they crave?  Maybe they're waiting them out right now someplace.  It's gotta be a LOT easier to run a police standoff with bad guys, when you don't have political/media pressure on the situation.  

So maybe that's it... maybe in a day or 5 we learn they freed the hostages or something like that.   Would be a HUGE story if that happened... most ppl assuming the plane crashed in water.

[viking1]

Jay is headed over to help in the search..... 

[honest]

I also think if they havent found debris by now that its been hijacked, could the pilot or co pilot have been uighur sympathisers, the co pilot has a muslim name, the uighurs just completed a large terrorist act in China, and like most muslim they are fighting a separatist conflict inside a country with no thought of economic reality.

[240 is Back]

Malaysia Airliner Communications Shut Down Separately: US Officials Say
Source: abc

Two U.S. officials tell ABC News the U.S. believes that the shutdown of two communication systems happened separately on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. One source said this indicates the plane did not come out of the sky because of a catastrophic failure.

The data reporting system, they believe, was shut down at 1:07 a.m. The transponder -- which transmits location and altitude -- shut down at 1:21 a.m. This indicates it may well have been a deliberate act, ABC News aviation consultant John Nance said.

(clip)

U.S. officials said earlier that they have an "indication" the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner may have crashed in the Indian Ocean and is moving the USS Kidd to the area to begin searching.
It's not clear what the indication was, but senior administration officials told ABC News the missing Malaysian flight continued to "ping" a satellite on an hourly basis after it lost contact with radar. The Boeing 777 jetliners are equipped with what is called the Airplane Health Management system in which they ping a satellite every hour. The number of pings would indicate how long the plane stayed aloft.

(clip)

White House spokesman Jay Carney said, “It's my understanding that based on some new information that's not necessarily conclusive, but new information, an additional search area may be opened in the Indian Ocean, and we are consulting with international partners about the appropriate assets to deploy.”...

[Roger Bacon]

Malaysia Airlines and the case of the missing legs

By Terri Rupar
March 12 at 2:32 pm

Or maybe it's the case of the extra legs?

The photos circulated Tuesday of the two Iranians who got on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight showed two men with different bags, different T-shirts and the same pair of legs.



The New Straits Times reports that Malaysian police said there was no purposeful doctoring of the photographs -- the photo of one man was simply placed on top of the photo of the other when they were photocopied.

[chaos]

Aliens?