Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is missing

Join this forum to discuss the latest news that happened in the world of commercial aviation.

Moderator: Latest news team

Post Reply
Sean_DM
Posts: 69
Joined: 28 Feb 2014, 11:46

Re: Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with flight M

Post by Sean_DM »

Wooow, the theories :D

They are just searching according to a search technique called "the creeping line ahead", where they will follow a search pattern in line with the projected route of flight, in the mean time they are asking ships and aircraft around to have a sharp lookout. The search area is very big, it's not unusual for it to take so long.
Last edited by Sean_DM on 11 Mar 2014, 09:31, edited 1 time in total.

teddybAIR
Posts: 1602
Joined: 02 Mar 2004, 00:00
Location: Steenokkerzeel
Contact:

Re: Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with flight M

Post by teddybAIR »

I agree with Sean on this one: no need for conspiracy theories because the search takes longer than our patience can handle.

User avatar
sn26567
Posts: 40827
Joined: 13 Feb 2003, 00:00
Location: Rosières/Rozieren, Belgium
Contact:

Re: Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with flight M

Post by sn26567 »

The Malaysian police has disclosed that the holder of one of the stolen passports is Iranian. A conspirator?

A man travelling on a stolen passport on a missing Malaysian jet was a young Iranian who is not believed to have terrorist links, Malaysian police say. They say the 19-year-old - named as Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad - was probably migrating to Germany. The authorities were in contact with his mother in Germany, who had been expecting her son to arrive in Frankfurt.

Investigations are continuing into a second man using stolen documents.
Last edited by sn26567 on 11 Mar 2014, 10:03, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Additional information
André
ex Sabena #26567

Passenger
Posts: 7266
Joined: 06 Dec 2010, 20:54

Re: Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with flight M

Post by Passenger »

sn26567 wrote:The Malaysian police has disclosed that the holder of one of the stolen passports is Iranian. A conspirator?
I don't think so: it looks like he was part of organized "ordinary" human traffic: his final destination was AMS, giving him free entrance into the European Union. He was already refused political asylum before. To travel on a passport that is internationally registererd as stolen wouldn't make sense for terrorists: there is a possibility that they get caught at the border control. And terrorist usually don't have a problem that they're identified after their act, so they would use their own passport (unless they are already on the USA terrorist list - but then, they would use forged passports, not stolen passports).

There was a press release from Interpol yesterday: "why don't use airlines our facilities to check their passport details through our database with more then a million of stolen passports? Only a handful of airlines does so".

teddybAIR
Posts: 1602
Joined: 02 Mar 2004, 00:00
Location: Steenokkerzeel
Contact:

Re: Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with flight M

Post by teddybAIR »

sn26567 wrote:The Malaysian police has disclosed that the holder of one of the stolen passports is Iranian. A conspirator?
No, that's just factual information.

User avatar
sn26567
Posts: 40827
Joined: 13 Feb 2003, 00:00
Location: Rosières/Rozieren, Belgium
Contact:

Re: Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with flight M

Post by sn26567 »

As usual, airlines don't like to use flight numbers of aircraft that had a crash.

Malaysia Airlines on Tuesday morning 11MAR14 replaced MH370/371 with MH318/319, starting Friday 14MAR14.

Source: Airline Route

In other news, Malaysia Airlines says that the west coast of the country is now the focus of search for missing plane. But then the aircraft would had crossed the country unnoticed...
André
ex Sabena #26567

Flanker2
Posts: 1741
Joined: 05 Dec 2012, 23:15

Re: Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with flight M

Post by Flanker2 »

One additional possible scenario come to think, is a total electrical failure caused by a surge... following a lightning strike or something like that. Pilots could then lose all instruments and communications as circuits are fried. The first reflex would be to navigate towards land, hoping to find a good landing spot, explaining the U-turn. However, it was night, so it's difficult to succeed in that so any pilot would then try to stick above a large agglomeration trying to find a runway or hope that fighter jets intercept it to bring it safely to the ground.

I'm sticking with piracy nonetheless.

Passenger
Posts: 7266
Joined: 06 Dec 2010, 20:54

Re: Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with flight M

Post by Passenger »

teddybAIR wrote:
sn26567 wrote:The Malaysian police has disclosed that the holder of one of the stolen passports is Iranian. A conspirator?
No, that's just factual information.
Update from The Aviation Herald: "...On Mar 11th 2014 Malay investigators reported a 19 year old Iranian was travelling on one of the false passports to join his family waiting for him in Germany. They were contacted by his mother admitting she knew her son was using a false passport..."

User avatar
fretn
Posts: 317
Joined: 12 Mar 2009, 19:30
Location: EBOS

Re: Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with flight M

Post by fretn »

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/ ... 1720140311
(Reuters) - Malaysia's military believes it tracked a missing jetliner by radar over the Strait of Malacca, far from where it last made contact with civilian air traffic control off the country's east coast, a military source told Reuters.

In one of the most baffling mysteries in recent aviation history, a massive search operation for the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER, now in its fourth day, has so far found no trace of the aircraft or the 239 passengers and crew.

"It changed course after Kota Bharu and took a lower altitude. It made it into the Malacca Strait," the military official, who has been briefed on investigations, told Reuters.

The Strait of Malacca, one of the world's busiest shipping channels, runs along Malaysia's west coast. The airline said on Saturday that radio and radar contact with Flight MH370 was lost off the east coast Malaysian town of Kota Bharu.

Police had earlier said they were investigating whether any passengers or crew on the plane had personal or psychological problems that might explain its disappearance, along with the possibility of a hijack, sabotage or mechanical failure.
Told you that they were looking in the wrong place.

Homo Aeroportus
Posts: 1489
Joined: 24 Feb 2007, 18:28
Location: 2300NM due South of North Pole

Re: Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with flight M

Post by Homo Aeroportus »

Sean_DM wrote:Wooow, the theories :D

They are just searching according to a search technique called "the creeping line ahead", where they will follow a search pattern in line with the projected route of flight, .....

Yeah, and they continued searching so long along that line that they made it around the world and are now searching the Malacca Straits and the Andaman Sea, 500NM backwards from the LKP...
:roll:

H.A.

b-west

Re: Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with flight M

Post by b-west »

Organ harvesting? Really? I think that there are far easier ways to get those organs. Hijacking a whole plane, making it land at some makeshift runway and then cut up over 250 people? I'm not saying it's completely impossible, but I would say it's about as likely as the plane being teleported to Mars... :?

The sea is a vast area of water, where debris can't always be found immediately, especially if you don't know where to look. An airliner starting to loose altitude at cruising level can still travel a great distance in a 360 degr radius from its initial point before hitting ground or sea. It can be a long and difficult search, or it could be over in the next half hour. Nowadays, we, and the media want everything to happen instantly and have immediate and preferably simple answers. But it just doesn't work like that...

For now, all the world can do is wait, let the search teams do their job. Once the 777 has been found, it may still take months or maybe well over a year of analysing debris and clues to what might have happened.

Sean_DM
Posts: 69
Joined: 28 Feb 2014, 11:46

Re: Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with flight M

Post by Sean_DM »

Homo Aeroportus wrote:
Sean_DM wrote:Wooow, the theories :D

They are just searching according to a search technique called "the creeping line ahead", where they will follow a search pattern in line with the projected route of flight, .....

Yeah, and they continued searching so long along that line that they made it around the world and are now searching the Malacca Straits and the Andaman Sea, 500NM backwards from the LKP...
:roll:

H.A.
I don't know if you know the search method. It's very thorough but it's slow. You can't blame them for looking in the obvious places first when an airliner goes missing.

Flanker2
Posts: 1741
Joined: 05 Dec 2012, 23:15

Re: Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with flight M

Post by Flanker2 »

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia's military believes it tracked the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner by radar over the Strait of Malacca, far from where it last made contact with civilian air traffic control off the country's east coast, a military source told Reuters.

The Strait of Malacca, one of the world's busiest shipping channels, runs along Malaysia's west coast. The airline said on Saturday that the flight carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew last had contact off the east coast Malaysian town of Kota Bharu.

"It changed course after Kota Bharu and took a lower altitude. It made it into the Malacca Strait," the military official, who has been briefed on investigations, told Reuters.

b-west

Re: Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with flight M

Post by b-west »

Interesting turn of events. Quite literally even.

Wondering if they have turned the aircraft around in an attempt to head back to KL, by crossing Malaysia and then flying back following the coast line.


Verzonden vanaf mijn iPhone met behulp van Tapatalk

User avatar
fretn
Posts: 317
Joined: 12 Mar 2009, 19:30
Location: EBOS

Re: Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with flight M

Post by fretn »

Hopefully the Indonesians have some more radar information. Let's hope the plane didn't cross Sumatra too, which would lead it to the vast depths of the Indian Ocean.

Homo Aeroportus
Posts: 1489
Joined: 24 Feb 2007, 18:28
Location: 2300NM due South of North Pole

Re: Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with flight M

Post by Homo Aeroportus »

Sean_DM wrote: ...I don't know if you know the search method. It's very thorough but it's slow. You can't blame them for looking in the obvious places first when an airliner goes missing.
Sean please, look at the map.
They are now searching everywhere; near the LKP and along the extended path, but also in the Malacca Straits which is on the opposite coast of the Malaysian peninsula.

It seems now that the military come out saying that they have detected MH370 turning back but how serious can that be.
That nobody was carefully watching an empty radar screen at midnight is one thing, though that says a lot about their readiness, but that it took them 3 days to retrieve the raw data and dig out that unidentified return spot crossing their homeland is a farce.

So now they end up searching the area in direct vicinity of the LKP, an area some 300NM on the NE of it near the Vietnamese coast , and another some 300NM SW of it in the Malacca Straits.

Great job for sure.

H.A.

Flanker2
Posts: 1741
Joined: 05 Dec 2012, 23:15

Re: Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with flight M

Post by Flanker2 »

Being a pilot in your home country, if you are in trouble but have enough fuel, you would be able to find your way home one way or the other, even in the darkest of nights. Even if the WX radar no longer works and can't be used in terrain mode, and all other instruments and coms are gone, by flying low enough they could spot some lights which would give them enough clues to get home.
If low enough they could also have used their cell phone to communicate.

And otherwise, they could just fly holding patterns at a steady altitude, using their last wind information, until day break and then land at the nearest airport.

The questions I have now is,
-why did MH370 cross the Malaysian peninsula at FL290?
If the intention was piracy, it doesn't make sense unless they already knew that the air force wouldn't do sh*t about it.
-Even if they knew that, why would they fly so high? They flew low enough to be just below RVSM airspace, but why would you do that if your intention is to be as stealthy as possible?
Were they flying as high as possible to get as much range as possible, yet avoiding RVSM airspace to avoid other traffic?
-Did the pirates expect incompetence and to have enough time to do whatever they wanted to do?
-The coast lines along the Malaysian peninsula are well-lit, so it's unlikely that pilots missed it and went straight out into the Strait.

-Isn't the Strait of Malacca "the place to be" of modern maritime piracy?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy_in_ ... of_Malacca


Come on people, it's obvious by now... the pirate activity in that Strait is abnormal.
They have taken tankers and huge cargo ships like it's nothing. A B772 is an easy target.

User avatar
quixoticguide
Posts: 1655
Joined: 23 Mar 2011, 18:41
Location: Pyongyang, DPRK
Contact:

Re: Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with flight M

Post by quixoticguide »

A report appeared in the NewScientist, claiming that Rolls Royce received two automatically dispatched ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System) messages, from the jet its Trent 800 engines.

The contents of the messages is not clear. If true, it could mean the airline has several ACARS messages as well.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2 ... x-m--d5O4e
Visit my flights on: http://www.quixoticguide.com

teddybAIR
Posts: 1602
Joined: 02 Mar 2004, 00:00
Location: Steenokkerzeel
Contact:

Re: Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with flight M

Post by teddybAIR »

Is it that hard to believe that we simply haven't found the wreckage yet?

teddybAIR
Posts: 1602
Joined: 02 Mar 2004, 00:00
Location: Steenokkerzeel
Contact:

Re: Malaysia Airlines says it has lost contact with flight M

Post by teddybAIR »

Just a critical question: who says that the primary radar return that was observed over the Malakka Straight was MH370? A primary radar return cannot be positively identified, can it? So the search in the Malakka Straight starts from the hypothesis that that primary radar return is in fact MH370. It wouldn't be the first time that such a return turns out to be a military training flight for example.

Post Reply