Malaysian airliner missing and feared lost

[Steven_Draker]

Shot down, hijacked or abducted by aliens: take your pick of MH370 theories

 

http://static.euronews.com/articles/301585/606x340_301585.jpg?1425561065

 

 

A year on from the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, what happened to the plane and its 239 passengers and crew still seems to be anyone’s guess.

 

An information vacuum has nourished the most outlandish conspiracy theories about one of aviation’s biggest mysteries, as well as heated online debate.

 

From sober, science-based arguments to the most eyebrow-raising hypotheses, here are a few of the most talked about ‘explanations’.

 

What they all agree on is that some key pieces of the puzzle are missing.

 

It crashed into the southern Indian Ocean

 

Official investigators used analysis from British firm Inmarsat of “pings” to its satellite from MH370, along with data direct from the plane before its transmissions stopped, to conclude that it flew south after dropping off Malaysian military radar and crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.

That conclusion has been challenged by aviation bloggers and freelance investigators, who have questioned key radar plots and assumptions about the speed and fuel burn of the jet.

 

Lending credence to some of the sceptics, Tim Clark, head of Emirates Airlines, said last November he believed information was being withheld – something Malaysia’s government has always denied.

 

The well-respected Independent Group (IG) has done its own analysis and believes the plane is probably near the current search zone, but not necessarily within it.

 

Just why MH370 ended up there is contested both within IG and others who support the official findings.

 

Some plump for a hijack scenario, others point to technical or pilot error. A British captain, Simon Hardy, says the plane did a fly-by of the pilot’s home island of Penang before flying repeatedly in and out of Malaysia and Thailand to confuse air traffic controllers.

 

 

It was accidentally shot down

 

This theory was the thrust of the first book published on the incident, ‘Flight MH370 The Mystery’.

London-based author Nigel Cawthorne said the plane may have been accidentally shot down during joint US-Thai military exercises in the South China Sea.

 

Such accidents have happened before: Korean Air flight 007 was shot down by the Soviet Union in 1983, and the US Navy downed an Iranian airliner in 1988.

 

Aviation experts are sceptical about a US and Thai cover-up, proponents argue the very nature of a “cover-up” is that it is hard to disprove.

 

It came down near the Diego Garcia US base

 

The former head of France’s Proteus Airlines, Marc Dugain, put forward the theory that the plane may have been shot down by the US military#, fearing a September 11 style attack on the US Navy base on the remote Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia.

Dugain pointed to the testimony of residents in the Maldives who reported seeing an airliner travelling towards the island, although their claims were widely dismissed.

 

It’s still intact and in Russia

 

Former pilot and regular CNN aviation expert Jeff Wise speculates that MH370 flew north along national borders to avoid radar before landing in Kazakhstan as part of a Russian-engineered plot.

Wise’s theory is dependent on somebody on board the plane tampering with key satellite transmission data to give the impression it flew south. He noted the relevant instruments could be accessed by a panel in the cabin and that there were three Russians on board.

 

New York-based Wise, like many others, confessed to becoming somewhat obsessed, even buying additional satellite data in an attempt to confirm his theory.

 

But he acknowledges he can offer no motive to explain why Russia would want to steal a Malaysian jetliner.

 

“It’s amazing how much information we don’t have after looking at this case for all this time,” said Wise, whose recently published Kindle book ‘The Plane That Wasn’t There’ reached No.1 on Amazon’s bestseller lists.

 

But supporters of rival theories don’t take kindly to his version of events.

 

The Independent Group (IG), comprised of around a dozen satellite, data, maths and aviation experts, has expelled Wise following articles linked to his book.

 

“It’s a bunch of garbage,” said New Zealand-based IG member Duncan Steel.

 

It’s in Pakistan for terrorist purposes

 

A retired US lieutenant general spread the theory the plane was flown to Taliban-controlled Pakistan, to be used to carry weapons of mass destruction for an attack on Israel. The idea was given a boost by newspaper mogul Rupert Murdoch, who tweeted: “Maybe no crash but stolen, effectively hidden, perhaps in Pakistan, like Bin Laden”.

 

MH370 is actually MH17

 

This theory is based on photos of the MH17 crash site in Ukraine, which proponents argue shows that the second crashed plane was in fact MH370, a later 777 model that had some small changes to its body.

How MH370 could have been hidden for six months before being substituted for MH17 – and what happened to the bodies – is not explained.

 

It’s now in the hands of aliens

 

Ridiculous? Maybe, but a CNN/ORC International poll carried out two months after MH370’s disappearance found that nearly 10% of Americans believe that space aliens or beings from another dimension were involved.

 

http://www.euronews.com/2015/03/05/shot-down-hijacked-or-abducted-by-aliens-take-your-pick-of-mh370-theories/

[+ sam.fitzpatrick]

PS I just read a pop-up this afternoon that says they "now" are leaning towards the found wing flap NOT being from a triple7. Anyone else see that? I can't find it again.

 

I read that there was "other debris" found on Reunion that has been eliminated as being from MH370; however, not the plane debris.

Edited August 2, 2015 by sam.fitzpatrick

[Steven_Draker]

I read that there was "other debris" found on Reunion that has been eliminated as being from MH370; however, not the debris.

 

http://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/78/590x/MH370-594738.jpg

 

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/07/31/08/2AFBF2ED00000578-3180957-image-m-4_1438328412783.jpg

 

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/07/31/08/2AFBF2F800000578-3180957-image-a-5_1438328426415.jpg

 

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/07/31/11/2AFC954700000578-3180957-image-m-13_1438337340449.jpg

[mike carey]

The Malaysian PM has just confirmed that the debris found at La Réunion was from MH370. So with that we can dispense with the conspiracy theories about the aircraft being flown to Diego Garcia or Central Asia.

[bigvalboy]

Thanks Mike...it's not closure for the families, but at least some of the pieces of the understanding of the tragedy will start to fall into place. We may never know why, but this is a start...

 

https://gma.yahoo.com/mh370-part-found-reunion-island-missing-plane-175854267--abc-news-topstories.html#

Edited August 5, 2015 by bigvalboy

[samhexum]

An investigation by an Australian TV news program suggests the pilot of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared with 239 people aboard more than four years ago, deliberately crashed into the Indian Ocean.

 

Investigators are still searching for the aircraft, but these findings raise the possibility that one of the greatest aviation mysteries in modern history may not have been a catastrophic accident, but instead a possible mass murder-suicide.

 

"60 Minutes Australia" brought together an international group of aviation experts who say that the disappearance of MH370 was a criminal act by veteran pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah.

 

"He was killing himself; unfortunately, he was killing everybody else on board, and he did it deliberately," said Canadian Air crash investigator Larry Vance.

 

Boeing 777 pilot and instructor Simon Hardy reconstructed the flight plan based on military radar, and says Captain Shah flew along the border of Malaysia and Thailand, crossing in and out of each country's airspace to avoid detection.

 

"It did the job," Hardy said, "because we know, as a fact, that the military did not come and intercept the aircraft."

 

Hardy also made a strange discovery: Captain Shah likely dipped the plane's wing over Penang, his hometown.

 

"Somebody was looking out the window," he suggested.

 

"Why did he want to look outside Penang?" asked reporter Tara Brown.

 

"It might be a long, emotional goodbye -- or a short, emotional goodbye," Hardy replied.

 

Two experts from the "60 Minutes Australia" investigation also disagreed with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau's scenario of the "death dive" with no one in control.

 

"I think someone was controlling the aircraft until the end," said Hardy.

 

They argue instead that Captain Shah flew Flight MH370 another 115 miles than originally thought. "This was a mission by one of the crew to hide the aircraft as far away from civilization as possible," Hardy said. "Which puts us way outside the search area that is currently being done."

 

The wreckage uncovered so far may be further evidence that the pilot actually had control and that it was not a high speed crash. As Larry Vance noted of one wing component recovered from the shore of Africa, "The front of it would be pressed in and hollow. The water would invade inside and it would just explode from the inside. So this piece would not even exist."

 

"They are very compelling," aviation analyst Henry Harteveldt, president of Atmosphere Research Group, told CBS News transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave. "What I find very compelling is the hypothesis that the pilot did this deliberately, and did one of the most heinous acts in modern commercial aviation."

 

CBS News spoke to multiple family members of the MH370 victims, and some say that this is nothing new and that without forensic evidence, they will not be convinced.

 

Captain Shah's family tells CBS News that "pointing a finger toward him does not make them expert investigators -- they have to find the plane."

 

Malaysia Airlines has not yet responded to requests for comment.

[JTtorretto]

I’ve also been fascinated with the mysterious disappearance of this large high-tech modern airplane.

 

Amazes me that my iphone can be easily tracked by GPS yet an airplane that costs $400 million dollars, can go missing.

 

Thank you for the informative update Samhexum!!!

[samhexum]

The ill-fated Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was piloted by a “lonely and sad” captain who experimented with a flight profile almost identical to the aircraft’s final doomed path — one that left a slim chance of finding remains or clues to what really happened in the skies that calamitous evening, a new report reveals.

 

In the July issue of The Atlantic, writer and aviation specialist William Langewiesche delves into what happened to the missing aircraft, including the disclosure that Malaysian officials knew far more about where the aircraft was the night it went missing and that Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah had “indications of trouble.”

 

The Boeing 777 carrying 239 people from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing vanished March 8, 2014, and is presumed to have crashed in the far southern Indian Ocean. A safety report into the disaster by an international team last July revealed the plane was likely steered off course deliberately by someone and flown for several hours after communications were severed.

 

The night the aircraft went missing, control was seized in the cockpit during a 20 minute period between 1:01 a.m. and 1:21 a.m. and radar records show the autopilot was probably switched off, according to Langewiesche.

 

The Boeing 777 then made a tight turn to the southwest that Mike Exner, an electrical engineer and investigating the disaster as a member of Independent Group, told The Atlantic probably coincided with a climb of up to 40,000 feet meant to “accelerate the effects of depressurizing the airplane, causing the rapid incapacitation and death of everyone in the cabin.”

 

While drop-down oxygen masks may have deployed, passengers would have had little use since they are only intended for 15 minutes of use during emergency descents, not cruising at high altitudes. Whoever was in the cockpit, however, would have had access to four pressurized-oxygen masks with a supply that could last hours.

 

“The cabin occupants would have become incapacitated within a couple of minutes, lost consciousness, and gently died without any choking or gasping for air,” Langewiesche writes.

 

As MH370 kept rocking across the sky, the aircraft appeared on radar while approaching Penang island at nearly 600 mph where the Malaysia air force had F-18 interceptors stationed at Butterwoth Air Base. A former official told the Atlantic that air force officials made sure an accident report was edited last year to say the radar had been “actively monitored” and the aircraft was not intercepted since it was “friendly.”

 

That appears to be far from the truth. Military officials initially searched for MH370 in the wrong body of water to the east, when the aircraft actually flew in the opposite direction.

 

When the report by a 19-member international team was released last July, Chief investigator Kok Soo Chon said during a media briefing there was no evidence of abnormal behavior or stress among the two pilots – Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah and co-pilot, Fariq Abdul Hamid – that could lead them to hijack the plane.

 

Langewiesche notes that while the co-pilot had nothing but a bright future ahead and no red flags in his past, Zaharie’s life raised multiple concerns. After his wife moved out, the captain, who was reported to be “lonely and sad,” also “spent a lot of time pacing empty rooms” and obsessed over two young internet models.

 

Forensic examinations of the pilot’s simulator by the FBI also revealed he experimented with a flight profile that roughly matched what’s believed to have happened to MH370, and that ended in “fuel exhaustion over the Indian Ocean.” New York Magazine reported in 2016 that the simulated flight was conducted less than a month before the plane vanished.

 

A fellow 777 captain who wished to not be identified out of fear of repercussions did not offer a possible motive to The Atlantic, but said Zaharie’s emotional state was fragile.

 

“Zaharie’s marriage was bad. In the past he slept with some of the flight attendants. And so what? We all do,” the pilot told the magazine. “You’re flying all over the world with these beautiful girls in the back. But his wife knew.”

 

While Langewiesche notes the idea of “a pilot who runs amok” may be hard to conceive, it has happened before. In a similar incident, EgyptAir Flight 990 crashed off the coast of Massachusetts in October 1999 on its way from John F. Kennedy Airport in New York to Cairo. Audio captured by the co-pilot caught pilot Gameel Al-Batouti say 11 times in Arabic, “I rely on God.”

 

Two years later, the National Transportation Safety Board determined Al-Batouti had been suicidal and purposely crashed the plane while the first pilot was out of the cockpit. Egyptian Civil Aviation Agency adamantly denied the NTSB’s findings, saying the report was “flawed and biased.”

 

The doomed Germanwings Flight 9525, which crashed into the French Alps in 2015, was also determined to be a case of suicide-by-pilot. Officials determined co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, who had previously been treated for suicidal tendencies, flew the airliner into the mountains on purpose. The plane was heading to Dusseldorf Airport in Germany from Spain.

 

Malaysia’s government has said that investigative reports released thus far are not a final accounting because the plane’s wreckage or so-called black boxes haven’t been found. But even when — or if — they are discovered, Langewiesche writes that it may “accomplish little” since the cockpit voice recorder self-erases after a two-hour loop and probably only has the sounds of the final alarms going off.

 

The flight-data recorder may show when the aircraft was depressurized and how the satellite box was powered down, but give no further explanation as to what happened in the cockpit.

 

Scattered pieces of debris that washed ashore on African beaches and Indian Ocean islands indicate MH370 crashed in a distant stretch of the ocean, but a multi-government search by Australia, Malaysia and China failed to pinpoint a location.

 

Additional debris, however, may take a while to locate since the aircraft is believed to have gone into a “vicious spiral” before colliding with the sea in a manner in which the plane “disintegrated into confetti when it hit the water,” according to Langewiesche.

 

Instead of focusing on finding the physical parts of the Boeing 777, the aviation expert believes some of the key parts of the timeline of what happened could be revealed by what authorities in Malaysia know and are keeping from the public.

 

“Unless they are as incompetent as the air force and air traffic control, the Malaysian police know more than they have dared to say,” Langewiesche notes. “The riddle may not be deep.”

[+ honcho]

The article popped up on my phone this afternoon and is worth reading in its entirety. Interesting items not mentioned above was that they figured out possible trajectories for the plane by checking against records of a telphone satellite (and registering the effects of doppler shift). The article documents numerous failures of air traffic control procedures. (It also gives a map of the route the plane flew).

[samhexum]

New tracking technology could make it possible to solve the nearly eight-year-old mystery of Malaysia Airlines flight 370, or at least locate its debris field, according to reports out of the UK.

The Boeing 777 was lost to radar contact in March 2014, about 90 minutes after departing Kuala Lumpur for Beijing. All 239 people aboard are presumed dead.

Its disappearance somewhere in the Indian Ocean touched off an international search effort. Yet years later only trace debris believed from the aircraft have been recovered.

A system called Weak Signal Propagation Reporter (WSRP), which tracks signals between aircraft and ground assets, was in its infancy at the time.

The new technology makes it possible to harvest more accurate data from the system, perhaps allowing searchers to pin down the location of the plane when it lost contact with air control, The Times of London reported.

“Imagine crossing a prairie with invisible trip wires crossing the whole area and going back and forth across the length and breadth,” British aerospace engineer Richard Godfrey, who has been part of a team searching for the aircraft for several years, told The Times.

“Each step you make you tread on particular trip wires and we can locate you at the intersection of the disturbed trip wires. We can track your path as you move across the prairie.”

Ocean Infinity, a marine robotics company, conducted the last search for the aircraft in 2018. The new findings could spark another effort.

“We are always interested in resuming the search whether as a result of new information or new technology,” a spokesman for Orion Infinity said, adding that the time frame to renew the endeavor would be late 2022 or early 2023.

 

Edited October 3, 2021 by samhexum