Flight MH370 mystery gets deeper and weirder

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

KRN, time to admit your "source" on the civil aviation board is a fake. He "saw" stuff that ain't there.

 

[kyredneck]

Lol, here's another one of my Australian 'sources':

"I have spoken with someone who has seen high quality images that show the so called "debris field" much more clearly than the images released. The images he has seen will never be released because the owner of the "equipment" that produced the images do not want to demonstrate their true capabilities - standard national security stuff.

I can also tell you that he felt that the size and shape was consistent with a floating shipping container, in his opinion."

Post 178.

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

Lol, here's another one of my Australian 'sources':

"I have spoken with someone who has seen high quality images that show the so called "debris field" much more clearly than the images released. The images he has seen will never be released because the owner of the "equipment" that produced the images do not want to demonstrate their true capabilities - standard national security stuff.

I can also tell you that he felt that the size and shape was consistent with a floating shipping container, in his opinion."

Post 178.

Heck, I could see that from the "bad" photos shown on Fox. :laugh:

That brings another issue to mind that I thought of this morning, and I wonder why all these "talking head experts" on the various news channels don't mention it.

1) The unidentified debris is floating at the very edge of the 3,200 mile flight-and-glide-path circle of which the aircraft was capable with its fuel load.
2) It was spotted eight days after the disappearance of MH370.
3) The location of the debris is smack in the middle of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.
4) A portion of the current breaks off to the north and becomes the West Australian Current that flows near the west coast of the continent/country.
5) Eight days before MH370 disappeared, the debris spotted 1,500 miles southeast of Perth would have been hundreds or thousands of miles west.
6) Four days after being spotted, it would be either a thousand miles or so further east, or floating up the west coast of Australia.
7) Therefore, debris spotted by the satellites couldn't possibly be debris from the aircraft.

Now, let me be the first to admit, I'm a dummy. But I figured that out. I'm pretty sure everybody who actually is an expert also figured it out. Yet they remain silent.

So what is this dog and pony show all about, anyway?

(That's a rhetorical question, by the way.)

 

[kyredneck]

"SEPANG: Kazakhstan is being approached to be used as a staging point for the MH370 Search and Rescue (SAR) operations in the northern corridor.

They are being approached despite having confirmed that they did not detect any traces of MH370 in their air space.

Acting Transport minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said today that Kazakhstan authorities have assured that they have found no trace of MH370.

"We are awaiting permission for Kazakhstan to be used as a staging point," he said at the daily press conference at Sama- Sama Hotel...."

They've not stopped searching the northern route.

What's your expert opinion d-CON, will Kazakhstan be cooperative and become a staging ground for the search?

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

What's your expert opinion d-CON, will Kazakhstan be cooperative and become a staging ground for the search?

Nope. Essentially, the government is a dictatorship. Nursultan Nazarbayev is the president, and before being "elected" to that post, he was the Communist Party Secretary for the "republic" when it was a Soviet satellite. He's a buddy of Putin's. Putin doesn't care about the flight. Nazarbayev doesn't care about the flight. No cooperation.

 

[kyredneck]

....and the plot thickens:

Missing jet WAS carrying highly flammable lithium batteries: CEO of Malaysian Airlines finally admits to dangerous cargo four days after DENYING it

When asked days ago, he said it was carrying 'tonnes of mangosteens'

Lithium-ion batteries have caused 140 mid-air incidents in last 20 years

The devices are commonly used in mobile phones and laptops

Classed as dangerous by The International Civil Aviation Organisation

Reignites theory that missing flight may have crashed after on-board fire
Aviation expert said it re-affirm belief that flames started in cargo hold

One cargo plane crashed in 2010 after attempting an emergency landing
Safety report said battery caught fire and filled the flight deck with smoke

The revelation has thrown the spotlight back on the theory that the Boeing 777 may have been overcome by a fire, rendering the crew and passengers unconscious after inhaling toxic fumes.

Lithium-ion batteries - which are used in mobile phones and laptops - have been responsible for a number of fires on planes and have even brought aircraft down in recent years.

According to US-based Federal Aviation Administration, lithium-ion batteries carried in the cargo or baggage have been responsible for more than 140 incidents between March 1991 and February 17 this year..."

 

[poncho]

No it can't be something as simple as that.

TND's elaborate conspiracy theories make for more interesting reading!

At any rate welcome to the fraternal order of the tinfoil hat society TND. :smilewinkgrin:

Let me give you an update. We of the fraternal order of tinfoil hats don't actually use tin foil anymore. That's a out dated conspiracy theory cooked up by the CIA and corporate media to demonize and marginalize our ever expanding brotherhood.

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But we suggest the double bubble as this seems to work better at reflecting transmitted waves from outer space and as an insulator to keep your head warmer in winter.

 

[kyredneck]

An onboard fire during flight would explain why the loss of communications and the apparent deliberate changes in course and restore the pilots' good names and reputations.

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

An onboard fire during flight would explain why the loss of communications and the apparent deliberate changes in course and restore the pilots' good names and reputations.

It would, and definitely needs to be considered, but until the actual wreckage of the aircraft is found, it is irrelevant. The lithium battery cargo could indeed cause an on board fire. Several incidents have been reported. UPS Flight 6 crashed trying to return to Dubai in 2010 when a lithium battery cargo fire erupted and smoke entered the cockpit. The aircraft was still climbing at the time, and had not leveled off. Confusion between Bahrain air traffic control and the crew due to communications failure had the plane trying to fly all the way back to Dubai instead of finding a closer airport. The plane's initial approach upon returning to Dubai was too high, it attempted a tight turn to return the airport, but crashed before it could line up for another approach.

UPS lost another plane on the runway due to a lithium battery fire during rollout after the plane landed in Philadelphia in 2006. The crew escaped. In both cases, crews were able to communicate with air traffic or ground controllers to report their situation, and they did this despite the emergency and the demands of their attention on the aircraft. Since 2006, there have been 22 such incidents, and no less than 30 new directives issued by the FAA and international agencies to air crews regarding on board cargo hold fires to address the situation. By the way, all these have been fires -- no explosions as this article incorrectly claims.

Business Insider actually published such a scenario the other day, and it does fit the moves we know for a fact happened. The following bullet points are deep in the story, but nonetheless provide a plausible theory.

This Is The Most Plausible Theory For The Plane's Disappearance We've Heard Yet ...​

• Shortly after takeoff, as Malaysia 370 was flying out over the ocean, just after the co-pilot gave his final "Good night" sign-off to Malaysia air traffic control, smoke began filling the cockpit, perhaps from a tire on the front landing gear that had ignited on takeoff.
• The captain immediately did exactly what he had been trained to do: turn the plane toward the closest airport so he could land.
• The closest appropriate airport was called Pulau Langkawi. It had a massive 13,000-foot runway. The captain programmed the destination into the flight computer. The autopilot turned the plane west and put it on a course right for the runway (the same heading the plane turned to).
• The captain and co-pilot tried to find the source of the smoke and fire. They switched off electrical "busses" to try to isolate it, in the process turning off systems like the transponder and ACARs automated update system (but not, presumably, the autopilot, which was flying the plane). They did not issue a distress call, because in a midair emergency your priorities are "aviate, navigate, communicate" — in that order. But smoke soon filled the cockpit and overwhelmed them (a tire fire could do this). The pilots passed out or died.
• Smoke filled the cabin and overwhelmed and distracted the passengers and cabin crew ... or the cockpit door was locked and/or the cockpit was filled with smoke, so no one could enter the cockpit to try to figure out where the plane was, how the pilots were, or how the plane might be successfully landed. (This would be a complicated task, even if one knew the pilots were unconscious and had access to the cockpit, especially if most of the plane's electrical systems were switched off or damaged).
• With no one awake to instruct the autopilot to land, the plane kept flying on its last programmed course ... right over Pulau Langkawi and out over the Indian Ocean. The engine-update system kept "pinging" the satellite. Eventually, six or seven hours after the incident, the plane ran out of fuel and crashed.

Strangely, it is not an aviation expert who wrote this story, but former equity research analyst Henry Blodget, who was senior Internet analyst for CIBC Oppenheimer and the head of the global Internet research team at Merrill Lynch during the dot-com bubble. He's got a good theory here, and one that may actually explain the events that have the world all shook up.

There are a few problems with it. The first is that FAA and international emergency procedures dictate a climb to 20,000 feet upon realization there is a cargo hold fire, in order to deprive the fire of oxygen. The plane was already at cruising altitude of 37,500 feet. The cargo hold containing cargo -- not pets or other animals in shipment -- is depressurized. There would be no fire at that altitude caused by lithium batteries. It couldn't burn.

There could have been another fire, however, from any number of causes, that fed off available oxygen inside the cabin, and once the pilots realized they had lost the aircraft, they would have put in a distress call with the outside hope that they could somehow get to an airport or even pull off a "Sully Sullenberger" landing at sea, and air-sea rescue could be scrambled from the regional coast guard agencies to rush to an approximate landing area. This is the second problem. No communication. I've heard numerous "expert talking heads" the last two weeks claim "They were too busy trying to fly the plane to communicate." That's utterly ignorant on their part. And though an immediate and catastrophic event would have prevented communication, such an event would have the plane down in minutes, if not seconds, and the debris would be in the Malacca Strait or on land in northwestern Malaysia.

Even in the direst of straits, the pilots would have made that call despite having to fly the aircraft, for one because they would be looking for a place to set down ASAP and would need air and ground controllers' cooperation in that effort, and for another, with the potential for being rendered unconscious, they would be hoping against hope because they were pilots, and pilots never give up. That's the way they are trained. Blodget didn't take that into account in his neat little but not-quite-realistic scenario.

The third problem is, had they pulled the busses, as he suggests, to extinguish the fire, that action would have also killed the auto pilot. Regarding that, he is just plain wrong. The autopilot is not powered separately. The plane would have gone down almost within sight of land. It would not be capable of continuing on as a flying coffin, as did golfer Payne Stewart's Learjet in 1999 when the aircraft lost pressurization and all aboard died within minutes. The Learjet is a lighter, more maneuverable aircraft, and with a dead stick goes first into "stick shaker" mode to alert the pilot, then engages the auto pilot automatically. There is no such function on a far larger, more cumbersome and complex aircraft like the 777.

Blodget's postulation is possible, if the pilots were overcome by the smoke in the fashion he describes, and didn't pull the power busses to extinguish the fire. Otherwise, it's another theory that doesn't quite explain it all. And like it or not, even though it may sound like a "conspiracy theory" that certain people on this board reject because it isn't "their kind of conspiracy theory" the terrorist event remains a more than plausible explanation of the whole thing.

 

[pinoybaptist]

TND-

my biggest problem with the offered speculation is that it has been said that the passengers' cellphones were ringing hours after the flight took off, and not diverting directly to voice mail as most cellphones do.....even the high-end networks and phones.
if the passengers saw smoke coming out of the cockpit, one or some of them would have called their people, like the 9-11 victims did.
having said all that, well, here's hoping they find the plane, whatever condition it's in.

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

TND-

my biggest problem with the offered speculation is that it has been said that the passengers' cellphones were ringing hours after the flight took off, and not diverting directly to voice mail as most cellphones do.....even the high-end networks and phones.
if the passengers saw smoke coming out of the cockpit, one or some of them would have called their people, like the 9-11 victims did.
having said all that, well, here's hoping they find the plane, whatever condition it's in.

Exactly. That's why Blodget's theory doesn't hold enough water to drink, and due to the fact the plane was above 20,000 feet, the lithium battery scenario doesn't hold any water at all. We're just going to have to wait and see.

I remain convinced someone took the aircraft. It is entirely possible it crashed anyway. Perhaps passengers pulled a "Flight 93" on the hijackers. But until we find wreckage, we just don't know.

 

[kyredneck]

"Malaysia Jet Search Revived by New Image of Drifting Object (1)

A Chinese satellite detected an object in the southern Indian Ocean that’s almost the width of an Olympic-size swimming pool, giving fresh impetus to the hunt for the Malaysian airliner that disappeared two weeks ago.

The image, taken on March 18, shows an object measuring 22 meters (72-feet) by 13 meters, according to a statement from China’s state administration of science, technology and industry for national defense. The item was located 120 kilometers from where possible debris was found by satellite two days earlier.

Today’s development rekindles hopes of a breakthrough in the mystery of the Malaysian plane after radar scans and visual searches failed to relocate the objects spotted in the earlier images and analysis of a flight simulator found at the home of the plane’s pilot’s produced no leads. The search is focused on an area of the Indian Ocean spanning 36,000 square kilometers."

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

The image, taken on March 18 ...

... would have the object now some 500 miles away, due to the speed of the West Australian current, not to mention it would likely have been thousands of miles away to the west, toward the Cape of Good Hope, On March 8 when the aircraft disappeared. So why are they going back to the same area, yet again?

Given that speed and the fact that March 18 is ten days after the flight's disappearance, why in the world does anyone think these pieces of debris have anything to do with MH370?

This time, those aren't rhetorical questions. Any answer that is remotely plausible will do.

 

[kyredneck]

... why in the world does anyone think these pieces of debris have anything to do with MH370?....

...to begin with, because of two possible routes plotted/calculated from the hourly satellite pings while the plane was in flight.

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

...to begin with, because of two possible routes plotted/calculated from the hourly satellite pings while the plane was in flight.

Not plausible. The search area is at the very edge of the 3,200 mile radius of the plane's last known location, the distance it could have flown, then glided, after that contact. As pointed out, the debris had to drift into the search area over the time frame between the aircraft's disappearance and the spotting of the debris on satellite photo.

If they are going to find debris from a southern route and crash, it will be northwest or south of Australia by now, depending on whether the wreckage was caught in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current or in the West Australia current. It is not going to be where they are looking.

Try again.

 

[kyredneck]

...ah, if only we could all be as smaurt as you...I'm sure those satellite guys aren't very smaurt either...

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

...ah, if only we could all be as smaurt as you...

Hey, I said I'm a dummy! :laugh:

It's scary if I can figure this out and they can't, don'cha think? The problem is, it's too obvious to ignore, yet the media of all stripes and the talking heads are doing just that.

 

[InTheLight]

if the passengers saw smoke coming out of the cockpit, one or some of them would have called their people, like the 9-11 victims did.

By this time they were probably out of range of any cell phone towers.

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

By this time they were probably out of range of any cell phone towers.

Under KRN's scenario, the fire started before the known turn to the southwest. That means everyone was still in cell phone range. It just doesn't add up.

 

[kyredneck]

I don't really have a scenario, just two broad categories, accidental or deliberate. The revelation that this plane was carrying hazardous cargo (after previously being denied) adds credence to the accidental, and, gets away from wrongly impugning the character of the flight crew.

Every scenario out there has things that "don't add up", just some are more preposterous than others.