Malaysia Airlines 'loses contact with plane' (and search effort updates)

[Dot Matrix]

I don't know what's going on here but I'm not totally convinced that the plane even crashed. A lot of the facts seem to hint at some kind of foul play surrounding the guys with stolen passports, maybe they hijacked the plane, disabled the radar transponders and flew off somewhere?

I'm not sure but you'd think they would have found SOMETHING by now if this thing actually crashed.

I'm not too convinced the plane is crashed anymore either.

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

I noticed that the security in Asian Airports are not as tough as in the United States. In Asia they only lightly check you but don't check the bags that you carrying on board. 

 

Only America and her allies are gripped by this fear.  Wherever I have flown in the middle east has had security guards, uniformed as military, armed but with really human attitudes.  The scanning has been akin to the world pre 9/11.  It's much more reasonable.

[+Random Stranger Subscriber¹]

The plane (and a pilot) with amazing safety record, crash, and do not use any chances to alert anyone....

 

The reports of the plane changing course.

 

The phones still ringing, like they did not sink in the ocean and still have reception.

 

 

 

I just hope the people are still alive!    That is the most we can hope for.      

[macoman]

The plane (and a pilot) with amazing safety record, crash, and do not use any chances to alert anyone....

The reports of the plane changing course.

The phones still ringing, like they did not sink in the ocean and still have reception.

I just hope the people are still alive! That is the most we can hope for.

I don't believe that they are alive. Not matter if they can't find evidence of anything.

[DocM]

Just to stir the pot.....

From Revolutions Analytics in 2009 talking about airliners and meteors.

http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2009/06/how-much-of-a-threat-are-meteors-to-aviation.html

How much of a threat are meteors to aviation?

The cause of the crash of Air France flight 447 has not been determined (and likely won't be for some time). The most likely cause is related to the turbulence in the area at the time of the crash, but other possibilities have been suggested -- including, surprisingly, meteor strike. That certainly seems far-fetched as a cause, but John Conway at the Discover Magazine blog Cosmic Variance does some back-of-the-envelope calculations to check on the likelihood of a meteor striking an aircraft.

The math is pretty simple. There are about 3,000 meteors a day of the requisite mass to strike Earth, or about 125 an hour. (Check thearticle for the sources of this and other such estimates.) Meteors strike the Earth at supersonic speeds, so from the meteor's point of view an aircraft is essentially stationary. This means the chance a meteor (entering at a random point on the globe) hits a given aircraft is determined by the fraction of the Earth's surface covered by the aircraft: about 5.7x10-13 for an average airliner. This is the probability of one aircraft being struck by one meteor. Air France 447 had planned flight time of about 11 hours, over which period 1375 meteors would be expected to fall. So the chance it would have been struck by a meteor during this flight (as calculated by R using the Poisson Distribution) is:

> 1-ppois(0,5.7e-13*1375)

[1] 7.8375e-10

So, about 1 in a billion, give or take. Turbulence is looking like a much more likely cause. Besides, as Phil Plait has noted, this is likely an over-estimate because meteors quickly slow down to terminal velocity, and so a jetliner is more likely to strike a meteor than the other way around. A lower effective surface profile from a head-on collision ... probably need some kind of volumetric calculation ... err ... too hard. But 1 in a billion is a safe upper bound.

But as we've noted before, if you observe an unlikely process enough times and/or for long enough, the chance of it ever happening can become surprisingly likely. Instead of asking about AF447 in particular, let's ask another question: what are the chances that in the next 20 years any aircraft will be struck by a meteor. Assuming, of course, air traffic levels stay constant, meteors are supersonic, entry distribution and flight distributions are uniform -- ok, there are a million assumptions, but it's an interesting back-of-the envelope calculation.

Here goes: at any given time, airliners cover 2 billionths of the Earth's surface. There are 125 meteors an hour, each with probability 2x10-9of striking some airplane. In 20 years, that's about 22 million independent possible impact events. The chance that every one of those meteors misses every airplane is:

> ppois(0,2e-9*22e6)

[1] 0.956954

In other words, there's about a 4.3% chance of a meteor strike on at least one airliner in the next 20 years. (John Conway used a different calculation but came to a similar result.) That's surprisingly large. To repeat: this is almost certainly an over-estimate, and applies not to a single flight but cumulatively to all flights over a 20-year period. Furthermore, there have been no documented cases of a meteor striking an aircraft so far, so even if it did occur we have no idea what kind of damage it would cause, or even if it would lead to a crash. But it's significant enough that it can't be ruled out next time there's an unexplained air crash incident.

[stoo2000]

There's a crowd-sourcing search effort that you can help with.

 

http://www.tomnod.com/nod/challenge/malaysiaairsar2014/

[JJ_]

So, an Iranian purchased the tickets for the 2 people traveling under stolen passports. TIckets were purchased at the last minute, paid for with cash, and were one-way. I'm sure some alarms are going off regarding those circumstances.

 

I think the stolen passport/terrorist theory will turn out to be a red herring. Both guys were of black descent. It could just be a legitimate case of them looking for a better life in Europe and if I were them, that last thing I'd want would be return tickets.

[SuperJediMedia]

Well, I'm pretty sure you're wrong!

 

Nothing has been proven yet, or disproven yet.  You are all over your own stories of what happened, from inventing radar jammer stories to all sorts.

The Air France thing has been disproved, I was right. Give up!

 

 

I don't like it when people drew comparisons that were obviously incorrect.

 

Which other crashed plane didn't have floating contents?

 

Next!

 

 

When you truly know all the FACTS, there has been NO other incidents like this one, period.

[zhangm Supervisor]

Just to stir the pot.....

From Revolutions Analytics in 2009 talking about airliners and meteors.

http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2009/06/how-much-of-a-threat-are-meteors-to-aviation.html

 

 

This is actually a hypothesis that I've had - mid-air collision with a meteor destroys the cockpit, disabling most electrical systems, incapacitating the cockpit crew, and leaving the plane largely intact, meaning that it can deviate from its planned trajectory for some distance before crashing, making the impact point hard to find (debris field would be relatively small compared to a midair explosion or disintegration). It fits the bill of being extremely rapid to the point that the crew cannot issue a distress call, and would (I think) explain why active radar reported that the plane deviated from its plotted course before the crash.

 

I'd expect them to be finding bodies in the next few days though - those will start to float if the cabin were compromised prior to, or during the impact.

[DocM]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/10688861/Mystery-fake-passport-holders-on-flight-MH370-were-Iranian.html

Mystery fake-passport holders on flight MH370 were Iranian

A BBC Persian report says that the two Iranians on the Malaysia Airlines plane had bought the fake passports in order to migrate to Germany and Denmark

The two men travelling on stolen passports on the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 that mysteriously disappeared on Saturday have been identified as Iranian nationals.

A BBC Persian report quotes an Iranian friend of one of the men, who said he hosted the pair in Kuala Lumpur after they arrived from Tehran in the days preceding their flight to Beijing.

The friend, who knew one of the men from his school days in Iran, said the men had bought the fake passports because they wanted to migrate to Europe.

The pair were travelling on passports belonging to Christian Kozel, an 30-year-old Austrian, and Luigi Maraldi, a 37-year-old Italian.

They had bought the passports in Kuala Lumpur as well as tickets to Amsterdam, via Beijing.

One of the Iranian nationals' intended final destination was Frankfurt, where his mother lives, while the other wanted to travel to Denmark.

The same source that spoke to BBC Persian also emailed CNN with a photograph of him posing with his two friends in the days before they embarked on their fateful trip.

An editor at BBC Persian told The Telegraph that the two Iranians were ?looking for a place to settle?.

>

[Chris123NT]

I think the stolen passport/terrorist theory will turn out to be a red herring. Both guys were of black descent. It could just be a legitimate case of them looking for a better life in Europe and if I were them, that last thing I'd want would be return tickets.

I would buy the better life theory if that plane wasn't going to China, China isn't exactly a place to thrive for the common citizen.

[einsteinbqat]

It is reported that families of the missing passengers tried to call their loved ones, and the phone calls are connecting, but without answer.

 

http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/21903251/family-phoned-passengers-on-missing-malaysia-airlines-flight/

[:: Lyon ::]

If it's terrorism, then surely someone or some group would have claimed about being the mastermind? There is no point in doing a terror activity if no one knows who or why

[Chris123NT]

If it's terrorism, then surely someone or some group would have claimed about being the mastermind? There is no point in doing a terror activity if no one knows who or why

Nobody will claim anything if this is just a step towards a much larger goal.  Terrorism can't be ruled out until more is known.

[DocM]

You don't call what's happening "terror"? Causing so much uncertainty and psychological pain seems pretty effective to me. Lets them drag it all out before the end game.

[(Account no longer active)]

Another possibility: perhaps someone brought several large lithium batteries on board with them.

[DavidM]

I would buy the better life theory if that plane wasn't going to China, China isn't exactly a place to thrive for the common citizen.

 

China was not the final stop for either of those two passengers, but off the top of my head I can't remember what was their destinations.

[Richteralan]

China was not the final stop for either of those two passengers, but off the top of my head I can't remember what was their destinations.

According to the Malaysia travel agency, those two passengers final destination is Europe, and they requested the cheapest ticket available. Thus Beijing is just for connection flight.

[Gerowen]

If I had to pick a theory, just based on what I've heard so far, I would go with the hi-jacking/redirection theory.  It seems to me that if the plane had crashed, exploded, or otherwise met a violent end, that somebody would have found some debris somewhere, even if it was just a seat cushion floating in the water.  The fact that cell phone calls are/were ringing through and being connected with no answer tells me that the phones were in a place with cell phone reception, and per several reports I've seen, a group called the Chinese Martyr Brigade has claimed responsibility.  Some people are saying this is a hoax e-mail, but I can't imagine why somebody would make something like this up, and it makes more sense than a crash that has left no debris, bodies, no distress calls, etc.

 

http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/21912148/terror-group-claims-responsibility-of-missing-malaysia-airlines-mh370/

[The Evil Overlord]

I'm confused, when you call a phone it will "ring out" no mater what if it's a number that hasn't been manually deactivated because you dialed out, if no one answered that's what I'd expect if something happened...

 

for it to come up as no a valid number you'd have to remove it from the phone exchange database... and why would you do that if the number wasn't deactivated?

 

what am I missing here?!

I'm thinking the concept of turning the phone off.

I cannot say for every nation, but in the UK, a phone that has been turned off, out of reception, or damaged beyond use generally doesn't 'ring out', callers get an automated message instead stating unsuccessful connection attempts

If I turn off any of my cell phones, it just goes to a default voice mail box, I've never had a cell phone say the phone is not available... virtually all cell phones have voice mail now days

and we've had phones destroyed at work and deactivated for a week and you could still call to it... they never deactivated or became unavailable

I understand what you mean, but my voicemail is turned off, and this is only an assumption, but if you cancel all diverts, forwarding etc and turn off voicemail, there would be an automated message

[Mr. Gibs]

If I had to pick a theory, just based on what I've heard so far, I would go with the hi-jacking/redirection theory. It seems to me that if the plane had crashed, exploded, or otherwise met a violent end, that somebody would have found some debris somewhere, even if it was just a seat cushion floating in the water. The fact that cell phone calls are/were ringing through and being connected with no answer tells me that the phones were in a place with cell phone reception,

The cell phone ringing thing has been proved false at least 20 times in this topic alone.

As for the hijacking / redirection, it's a possibility but there is one flaw to it. They'd have be flying really really low to avoid radar which would reduce their range significantly (excess fuel burn at lower altitudes). That area is also commonly filled with fishing boats so someone would have seen the plane or at least heard it. A boeing 777 at 500 feet would be loud as ####.

Now there was a police report that was filed on the day by a local fisherman who said he saw a plane flying suspiciously low, but so far they haven't been able to link it to MH370.

 

I noticed that the security in Asian Airports are not as tough as in the United States. In Asia they only lightly check you but don't check the bags that you carrying on board.

Really depends where you go and who is on duty. I've had some of the toughest immigration questions asked by custom officials in Asia and I've also seen people get liquids, screwdrivers and once even a ####ing switchblade past TSA in America.

Some people take their job seriously, some people just don't give a ####. As for the whole Interpol checking the password thing, yes its a very useful tool but it's pretty expensive to get access to. Outside of EU and America most other countries just don't want to spend the money doing it.

Most people are also forgetting this happened at the exit immigration check. This is mainly just a formality so that the country can update their records to show who left and who overstayed / is overstaying their visa. There is very little immigration security at this point because you're leaving the country, not entering. Some countries, like the US, don't even bother with it though I believe they are slowly adding automated systems at major airports in the US for this.

[Turk.]

hijack, but where?

[Hum]

So, an Iranian purchased the tickets for the 2 people traveling under stolen passports. TIckets were purchased at the last minute, paid for with cash, and were one-way. I'm sure some alarms are going off regarding those circumstances.

 

There are about 39 million stolen passports in circulation.

 

The 'Iranian' has turned out to be innocent -- he himself came forward.

 

Radar is much more limited and spotty in southeast Asia.

 

The plane was flown under the radar, to land in some unknown location -- in tact.

 

Jet ID signal was turned off, before the 'turn' and disappearing.

 

This could mean that they were drug dealers, and the plane was hijacked to be repainted, then used for smuggling drugs, or arms.

[Raa]

 

This could mean that they were drug dealers, and the plane was hijacked to be repainted, then used for smuggling drugs, or arms.

And the passengers?

What about a ransom?

 

I dunno, not enough of it makes sense yet...

[mudslag]

There are about 39 million stolen passports in circulation.

 

The 'Iranian' has turned out to be innocent -- he himself came forward.

 

Radar is much more limited and spotty in southeast Asia.

 

The plane was flown under the radar, to land in some unknown location -- in tact.

 

Jet ID signal was turned off, before the 'turn' and disappearing.

 

This could mean that they were drug dealers, and the plane was hijacked to be repainted, then used for smuggling drugs, or arms.

 

 

Holy conspiracy batman...if this was a small private jet you might be able to pull that off but this was a wide-body Boeing 777, not some run of the mill plane that can just disappear and reappear later on with a new paint job and made up info.