Malaysia Airlines 777 missing en route to beijing

[StarSword]

To soon?

I think you're safely in Crosses the Line Twice territory with that one, bub.

[Broomstick]

Generally, if you have to ask "Too soon?" the answer yes.

But yeah, I laughed, too. Then again, I have a highly developed sense of graveyard/dark/morbid humor.

[AniThyng]

So everyday I hear whinging that the Malaysian Navy has not sortied its Scorpene attack submarines to help the search.

Level with me here, would these submarines be at all useful in the search? I would think they would be of minimal value at best.

[TimothyC]

So everyday I hear whinging that the Malaysian Navy has not sortied its Scorpene attack submarines to help the search.

Level with me here, would these submarines be at all useful in the search? I would think they would be of minimal value at best.

They could listen for the pings generated by the Black boxes, although, with limited range, they'd have to have an area to search in, which might not be plausible now:

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, 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.

[Sky Captain]

So in the end it turns out hijacking is likely possibility. I wonder why did it took so long to discover plane continued to send engine health data for five hours after transponder was shut down? Finding it out should be as simple as quick search of Rolls Royce databease where they store engine health data from various aircraft.

[Hillary]

If it IS hijacking, I wonder why no demands have yet been issued.

[AniThyng]

So in the end it turns out hijacking is likely possibility. I wonder why did it took so long to discover plane continued to send engine health data for five hours after transponder was shut down? Finding it out should be as simple as quick search of Rolls Royce databease where they store engine health data from various aircraft.

The fuck is this now. At this rate I would accept all the damn LOST jokes in the world already.

[Borgholio]

The fuck is this now. At this rate I would accept all the damn LOST jokes in the world already.

Actually for the last two days I've been thinking along the lines of the Bermuda Triangle...

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

If it IS hijacking, I wonder why no demands have yet been issued.

Passengers fought with hijackers. Hijackers blow themselves up. Plane ends up in the ocean in pieces?

[Broomstick]

If it IS hijacking, I wonder why no demands have yet been issued.

If what they want is the actual airplane itself why issue demands?

Of course, that still leaves the question of what happened to all those people on board...

[AniThyng]

That leaves open the question of in which direction it flew and where it would have blown up, and it would have to be somewhere isolated enough no debris might be accidentally found.

[AniThyng]

Anyhow, some commentators have complained that it is racist that only Malay government officials speak rather than Malaysian chinese officials when this involves china. Who is really being racist here?

[Thanas]

Why would anyone want to steal a passenger plane when stealing cargo planes is easier and less bloody?

[General Zod]

Why would anyone want to steal a passenger plane when stealing cargo planes is easier and less bloody?

Were there any high profile individuals on the flight that people really wanted gone? Possibly traveling under assumed names? Granted, it's a really bad conspiracy theory but that's all I can think of. Otherwise virtually any other explanation would make more sense.

[Broomstick]

Why would anyone want to steal a passenger plane when stealing cargo planes is easier and less bloody?

You're right, that theory doesn't make sense. Neither do any of the other theories bandied about lately.

[fgalkin]

Why would anyone want to steal a passenger plane when stealing cargo planes is easier and less bloody?

Presumably, a hijacker would have a harder time getting onboard as the general public isn't usually allowed onto cargo planes.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[ray245]

It must be so upsetting for the relatives of the people on the flight, when they are always being given this false sense of hope that their loved ones might be alive.

[Thanas]

Why would anyone want to steal a passenger plane when stealing cargo planes is easier and less bloody?

Presumably, a hijacker would have a harder time getting onboard as the general public isn't usually allowed onto cargo planes.

If you have got the kind of resources to hijack a plane, kill 200+ people, have them and the plane disappear and then sell the plane or parts of it (who are all individualized so you have to falsify papertrails etc. iirc) then I bet you also have the kind of resources to bribe a few officials, get a fake ID and work clothes and then get a cargo plane.

[Broomstick]

Was talking this over with a fellow pilot. We were thinking that the airplane might have depressurized along with/because of a major power loss and one pilot remained conscious long enough to try to turn the airplane back to the departure point but did not remain conscious much past that turn. With other depressurization accidents such as the Payne Stewart accident and Helios Flight 522 the aircraft remained in the air hours after everyone on board was incapacitated, basically continuing until the fuel ran out.

So far, that seems to fit the facts the best. But that also means this airplane is almost certainly on the bottom of the ocean, which will make it hard to find. It is even conceivable it was a relatively soft water landing, meaning the airplane might have remained largely intact, leaving a miniscule debris field.

I really want them to find that airplane. So do a lot of other people.

[LadyTevar]

Broomstick? I think that is the scariest idea yet.

[Broomstick]

Yeah, it is pretty damn scary because that sort of thing isn't supposed to happen, there are supposed to be rules about pilots wearing oxygen masks above certain altitudes even if nothing is wrong, or if one has to leave the cockpit... Payne Stewart's airplane was a Learjet, it's a small airplane and will depressurize quickly but a big widebody airliner jet shouldn't lose pressure that quickly even if you lose an entire window or something (there was an incident like that, where a cockpit window blew out, but in that case the crew was able to retain control of the airplane and landed safely), one or both pilots should have had a mask on at that altitude, etc., etc. In the Helios case they know at least one of the flight attendants remained conscious for awhile and tried to remedy the situation. Taking out everyone at once is... weird.

I can't think of anything else that could fit the facts here. Depressurizing fits whether the airplane kept flying for either a short or long time afterward, as staying in the air would depend on airplane configuration + fuel burn/capacity. Once it's set it will keep going until something changes the flight path.

[CaptHawkeye]

Problem with slow depressurization is that no one can realize it's happening before it's already too late and they're all barely conscious or totally incapacitated. A carbon monoxide leak works the same way, but without any evidence to suggest that's what happened I admit it's conjectural.

[bilateralrope]

Problem with slow depressurization is that no one can realize it's happening before it's already too late and they're all barely conscious or totally incapacitated. A carbon monoxide leak works the same way, but without any evidence to suggest that's what happened I admit it's conjectural.

Wouldn't there be a system to monitor for a slow depressurization and alert the pilots while they still have time to do something ?

[Broomstick]

I would presume so, but systems can malfunction. Also, at some point the oxygen masks would drop automatically, which I think would be noticed.

Depressurization can also be used knock out/incapacitate the passengers and crew, which solves the problem of "how did hypothetical hijackers subdue everyone and keep them quiet". Maybe.

There are now reports that two different systems were shut down 15 minutes apart... implying deliberate human action.

This is just weird, and getting stranger.

[AniThyng]

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/b ... e-net.html

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report) — A total absence of actual information about the missing Malaysia flight is not in any way hindering twenty-four-hour coverage of the story, the major cable news networks confirmed today.

“As a news network, we regard a lack of news as a worthy challenge,” the CNN chief Jeff Zucker said. “Our people are doing a heroic job of filling the void with rumor and hearsay.”

A spokesperson for MSNBC, however, scoffed at Mr. Zucker’s assessment that there was no information about the missing plane. “We are receiving tons of erroneous and conflicting reports from authorities every hour, and the instant we get them we pass them on to our viewers,” he said.

Over at Fox, host Sean Hannity expressed confidence in his network’s coverage. “When it comes to broadcasting twenty-four hours a day with no verifiable facts, I wouldn’t trade our experience and expertise for anybody’s,” he said.

Promising that the network was working overtime to generate new unfounded conspiracy theories, Mr. Hannity said, “We’ve put our whole Benghazi team on this.”

Yeah.