How do you lose a plane?

Now they say it made a left turn twords some islands...

 

Classified analysis ... so Malaysia doesn't want to disclose radar capability and nobody else wants to disclose satellite observation capability.

 

Seems like maylasia has something to hide.


Just saw this. How does it take a week to come up with this...
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Probe Sharpens Focus on Sabotage - WSJ.com

 

Couple things..

1. If it crashed in the jungle when you are looking for it wouldn't you see a void in the jungle?
2. It seems to me like Malaysia dosent know what they are doing (or do they). Seems like they don't want to share info and radar stuff with everyone.
3. Why did it take a week to decide it was in another ocean?

 

I don't think Malaysian military has any more to hide about its capabilities than an other sovereign nation.

That said, there is a high level of seeming buffoonery coming out of Malaysia and as someone who reads Malaysian news and spends time there... I am not shocked.

Less of an aside: This is increasingly feeling like the plot of a James Bond film. If we discover the plane being retrofitted in a hollowed out volcano, I will not be surprised.

 

Why has it taken 8 days to come up with all this Info? Are nations hoarding info?

 

It seems like the general conciseness at this point is that the plane was hijacked in one way or another.
Nobody seems sure what the end result of that is since the direction it seems to have went really doesn't have anyplace to land a plane that size.
Like @ralphie250 I wonder why it took so long for the officials to figure this out and it seems like no official sources are willing to step forward with anything.
The only place anyone seems to be getting information is from people who don't have authority to speak officially but are willing to give just enough information to make everyone wonder what the hell is going on.

 

Its not like it was a Russian plane and ukraine has info. Why can't the world get along for 5 minutes and come together and find a plane.

 

Is it odd that the pilot had a flight simulator in his house?

 

I just spoke with a recently retied (aged out) Fed-Ex pilot who spent the past 25 years flying mainly 747's all over the world. He used to leave here, Merida, and call me three days later from places like India or Kenya. He didn't have much input on where the pane went or currently is, he certainty thinks it's possible the plane is intact on some remote airfield. He pointed out the landing distance of the 777 is much less then many other large aircraft. the main point I took away from the conversation was he's convinced ay least one of the crew purposely took some action that resulted in the aircraft diverting from it's intended flight path.

BTW- the squawk code for a highjacking is 2400. It's one of the first things they teach you in ground school. At the time I attended, pre-9/11, they taught us, more like beat it into our heads, never to set the transponder to 2400 accidentally. If you do accidentally set it to 2400 you'd better either convince ATC it was accidental or there's better be a hijacker on your plane when you land.

 

The red dots represent the 634 airstrips within flying distance of the missing flight, that could handle a plane that size.

There is now a theory that the plane could have closely followed another plane to mask its radar signature.

Finally, I have also heard that the transponder was switched off prior to the final message of, "goodnight".

 

Wow that is a beast. I'm simply parroting what an experienced ATP lic. pilot expressed to me. His mentioning the 777 landing requirements seemed more like some one would say while speaking aloud thoughts as you process them. His comments that it was his opinion a crew member or members, for whatever reason, purposely took actions not in accordance with the flight plan was something he was very firm about and by the manner he said them I presume he'd put more than passing thoughts about the subject. Basically what I took away from our conversation was he had no idea where the plane might be but the entire incident could not have occurred without a flight deck crew member taking some action for some reason. Like the current location of the aircraft he had no idea why they (or them) would do or take the action they did.

I agree with him on that issue. Unless there's info out there that I've not read (which obviously is entirely possible) I don't think there's enough evidence to know what happened. All anyone seems to know for sure is flight 370 is missing. Beyond that not much is known... or at least being made public.
--- merged: Mar 15, 2014 at 8:54 PM ---

Are you saying they radioed "goodnight" or they set the transponder to "goodnight?" As far as I know there's no four digit code for "goodnight." Of course my knowledge of aircraft this size and the working of equipment on a flight deck of such an animal. I do know they set their transponders to ling their flt number. The planes I used to regularly fly all you could do with the transponder was input a basic four digit code, usually 1200 if flying VFR and if I remember correctly. For example upon entering populated areas with active and required contact with ATC they, ATC, would assign you a squawk sign. The aircraft I leased every summer for several summers was a Piper Arrow with a tail number of NW718 anytime I approached PDX or SEA (the two major airports in my area) airspace I would request clearance to do so and almost always the response would be "November Whiskey 718 proceed at altitude __________ and heading of __________ and squawk _____." The you repeat all that back to confirm you heard and understood.

 

I heard they actually said "goodnight" right before the transponder went off.

 

In English?

 

There is no apparent mystery around the final transmission of, "All right, good night." It was standard procedure.

The interesting part is that part of the communications system was disabled prior to that transmission.

As for the airstrip and weight issues, a pilot of 777s has commented that these planes can land on shorter airstrips than you might think and that a highway or even a strip of packed dirt would suffice. That means that the 600+ airstrips above are just a fraction of the possible places the plane could land.