Malaysia Airlines Loses Contact With 777 en Route to Beijing

[BlueMax]

Just one word: fishy.

With the flip-flopping by the military it certainly has become a very strange incident indeed. Very suspicious and looking like a cover-up by somebody.

[pierpp]

Can I just say something
I am no aviation expert, and wave the white flag about that. i am no pilot, nor do I work in the airline industry, I just follow these forums with interest.

I have a theory:

Boeing had an issue with the emergency locator beacons on the dreamliner, with the one the Ethiopian 787 one catching fire at heathrow. If I remember rightly that same beacon was not unique to the 787 and is used in other Boeing aircraft.

Could it be that MH 370 was flying at 35,000ft, and the ELB caught fire, caused a slow burn, that spread through the aircraft, cutting some electrical circuits relation to radio communication,and the pilots couldnt radio for help. the aircraft just burned up in the sky and the whole plane just burned to such small pieces that the debris is impossible to locate?

Just my small theory.....

[Bryan]

Gawker is reporting that ABC is working a lead that a Oil Worker off the coast of Vietnam in the South China Sea saw it burning and coming down.

http://gawker.com/oil-rig-worker-say...ium=socialflow

[Peter Kesternich]

Can I just say something
I am no aviation expert, and wave the white flag about that. i am no pilot, nor do I work in the airline industry, I just follow these forums with interest.

I have a theory:

Boeing had an issue with the emergency locator beacons on the dreamliner, with the one the Ethiopian 787 one catching fire at heathrow. If I remember rightly that same beacon was not unique to the 787 and is used in other Boeing aircraft.

Could it be that MH 370 was flying at 35,000ft, and the ELB caught fire, caused a slow burn, that spread through the aircraft, cutting some electrical circuits relation to radio communication,and the pilots couldnt radio for help. the aircraft just burned up in the sky and the whole plane just burned to such small pieces that the debris is impossible to locate?

Just my small theory.....

Not very likely, if you ask me. If it was a slow burn, it would give the crew time to initiate a controlled emergency descend which would have been detectable by primary radar in the area. If the fire then spread, structural integrity of the aircraft would have become compromised before it could burn up into small pieces. It would break apart and there would be large pieces of wreckage, e.g. wings, tailplane, etc.

[pierpp]

perhaps, but then does anyone really know the physics of a plane burning at 400mph, at 35,000ft with such thin air, and how it really spreads....its not something that really gets tested!
maybe the pilots tried to turn back, and the whole aircraft was overcome in flames and no large parts of the plane survived, hence no debris, and no communication

[sjwk]

Another update on avherald:

Late Mar 12th 2014 China's State Administration of Science (SASTIND) reported, they discovered three large objects sized 13x18, 14x19 and 24x22 meters at position N6.7 E105.63 (121nm eastsoutheast of the last known secondary radar position), all three objects within a radius of 20km (12nm) and published the satellite images, taken on Mar 9th 2014 at 11:00 Beijing time (03:00Z), see below.

Won't include images, avherald doesn't seem to allow hotlinking
edit: added quick grab from Google Earth highlighting the coordinates.

[Peter Kesternich]

perhaps, but then does anyone really know the physics of a plane burning at 400mph, at 35,000ft with such thin air, and how it really spreads....its not something that really gets tested!
maybe the pilots tried to turn back, and the whole aircraft was overcome in flames and no large parts of the plane survived, hence no debris, and no communication

Well - you don't need to test it. A computer model will suffice. And it's not like there haven't been fires on planes before: Swissair 111, ValuJet 592, Saudia 163, Air Canada 797, Nationair (Nigeria Airways) 2120...

[NavyDude]

Gawker is reporting that ABC is working a lead that a Oil Worker off the coast of Vietnam in the South China Sea saw it burning and coming down.

http://gawker.com/oil-rig-worker-say...ium=socialflow

Wonder why took so long to this guy to spell it out. BUT, figures make sense, and put the plane 160NM ESE of Ca Mau.

[andyb99]

dude on sky TV was just theorising....he said there was an airworth directive 5 weeks ago that 'suggested' the 'skin' under the primary antenna which is above the cockpit needed attention to check for corrosion.
to me that sounds like a recall on a car...it probably wont happen but just in case etc.....however...he then said this could have failed....cabin decompressed...everybody fainted and it flew on for 3000 miles....and this 'antenna then detached so they lost all comms??

now i know you lot are all talkers and not listeners.....but i think that would be a single point of failure for comms...no back up.....cant be right...right??
plus....does radar not pick up a plane whether it can communicate or not?? i thought the point of radar was that it can see....regardless of wether anything is signalling.....right??

i think he was talking tosh but i'd be interested in some pro feedback so i can shout it to him at the telly!!!

[Peter Kesternich]

(...) now i know you lot are all talkers and not listeners.....(...)

First of all, we are aviation enthusiasts... and then hopefully readers and writers... hahaha...

[Peter Kesternich]

dude on sky TV was just theorising....he said there was an airworth directive 5 weeks ago that 'suggested' the 'skin' under the primary antenna which is above the cockpit needed attention to check for corrosion.
to me that sounds like a recall on a car...it probably wont happen but just in case etc.....however...he then said this could have failed....cabin decompressed...everybody fainted and it flew on for 3000 miles....and this 'antenna then detached so they lost all comms??

now i know you lot are all talkers and not listeners.....but i think that would be a single point of failure for comms...no back up.....cant be right...right??
plus....does radar not pick up a plane whether it can communicate or not?? i thought the point of radar was that it can see....regardless of wether anything is signalling.....right??

i think he was talking tosh but i'd be interested in some pro feedback so i can shout it to him at the telly!!!

An airworthiness directive normally comes with a time frame in which to check the issue, depending on how serious it is. From what you wrote, there is not much we can deduce. If the cabin decompresses, they don't faint instantly. Ideally, the crew put on oxygen masks, descend to a safe altitude and land at the nearest airport.
An aircraft has more than just one antenna to radio, so the failure you describe would most likely not put all radios out of commission.
As for radar, here's some suggested reading for you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_surveillance_radar

[James Bond]

Oh. My.

http://news.malaysia.msn.com/tmi/families-of-mh370-chinese-passengers-incensed-after-ending-up-in-india

[BoeingBobby]

Can I just say something
I am no aviation expert, and wave the white flag about that. i am no pilot, nor do I work in the airline industry, I just follow these forums with interest.

I have a theory:

Boeing had an issue with the emergency locator beacons on the dreamliner, with the one the Ethiopian 787 one catching fire at heathrow. If I remember rightly that same beacon was not unique to the 787 and is used in other Boeing aircraft.

Could it be that MH 370 was flying at 35,000ft, and the ELB caught fire, caused a slow burn, that spread through the aircraft, cutting some electrical circuits relation to radio communication,and the pilots couldnt radio for help. the aircraft just burned up in the sky and the whole plane just burned to such small pieces that the debris is impossible to locate?

Just my small theory.....

In a nutshell, NO

[Evan]

I suppose one other possibility is that MH-370 collided with crossing traffic that had been flying dark, without transponders (perhaps illicit activity) and broke up midair, a la Gol 1907, and the 'blip' they tracked, sans transponder was the surviving aircraft hightailing it out of there. There would, or course be wreckage near the intended flight path, but over the past few days I have become wary of the SAR's ability to find or report anything.

Or if you want to go into conspiracy land, that crossing traffic might have been military or vip and the whole thing is a cover up now.

Far-fetched?

Yeah.

[Timmerich]

What's about this theory:

http://www.smh.com.au/world/missing-malaysia-airlines-plane-us-issued-warnings-over-boeing-777s-20140312-hvhqz.html#ixzz2vjjOovYW