Malaysia Airlines Loses Contact With 777 en Route to Beijing

[jmtejada]

I can't believe the media has not talked about this ( at least from the reports i've heard) but there is precedent for an aircraft turning off it's transponder to avoid detection and it occured on 9/11, and in that event ATC was still able to track the planes as they approached NYC. So this plane's course had to have been tracked unless the aircraft disintegrated or flew below radar coverage.

Key elements of this story are being purposefully withheld , things just aren't adding up...

[Brainsys]

Now...what if the plane landed on some deserted airfield, was re fueled and took off to another undisclosed location? If so we may never find it.

There is the small matter of keeping 239 people quiet, watered and fed. Or disposing of same.

Those of us who remember Dawson's Field will get a grip of the problem.

[Gabriel]

I can't believe the media has not talked about this ( at least from the reports i've heard) but there is precedent for an aircraft turning off it's transponder to avoid detection and it occured on 9/11, and in that event ATC was still able to track the planes as they approached NYC.

No, they were not.

[AA 1818]

Has any search involved more governments, working in tandem, to recover the wreckage?

At present, Malaysia, Australia, Brunei, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the United Stated and Vietnam are all actively helping in efforts to find the aircraft. 14 nations!

What's scary to me has been the amount of information leaked to the press, or out-rightly stated, that has later had to been retracted by the Malaysian Government. At present, the international community (and leading the call is China, perhaps rightly so considering the amount of Chinese lives lost) believes that the Malaysian Government has been hiding information (perhaps due to the outrage that the airline suffered when they botched the original way of informing families). The other alternative is that the Malaysian Government is inundated with a horrible information complex and leaks are sensationalized if only to be disproved by the Malaysians the next morning. There have been so many so far, that their credibility is being loudly questioned.

The reason I bring this up - is because with 14 different nations assisting, and with at least 12 different nations having their military hardware all flying around each other, and 5 of Asia's most powerful military powers are in direct contact with each other (India, China, Thailand, Singapore, Australia), and no real way of sharing proper and correct intelligence. It seems that the forces are really battling each other, and at one time or another, everyone is faulting the Malaysians.

This aircraft needs to be found, and soon, if only to avoid Malaysia suffering further credibility issues.

[AA 1818]

No, they were not.

Well, that's a bad answer. Haha, is it no to turning the transponder off? Or, no, that ATC was not able to track them?

[Gabriel]

Track all commercial flights! Is it really that hard? I don't think so.

Hard? No.
Expensive? A lot!!!

In each ariplane, buy a sort of a special "satelite phone" that is certified to fixed aircraft-equipment standards (TSO), have it installed by an FAA certified party, pay the bill of the phone being continuously "in a call" every time the wheels are off the ground 7/24, add the maintenance cost. And by the way, you might find that more infrastructure might be necessary (more satellites).

All that, just in case one plane crash and can't be found by other means.

Don't take me wrong. It's technically feasible and decreasingly expensive as time goes by, and the industry is already working around this. But it's not piece of cake.

And my previous comment was because you've said:
"It amazes me that we can track automobiles [but not all automobiles are tracked], monkeys in the jungle [but not all monkeys are tracked], thugs on parole [but not all thugs on parole are tracked]... but we can't track or monitor a 1/4 billion dollar plane [yes, we can and we do track a plane, but nor all planes are tracked]."

And by the way, if one of the monkeys you are tracking is eaten by a lion you'll probably never find its remains either.

[AndyToop]

Well, that's a bad answer. Haha, is it no to turning the transponder off? Or, no, that ATC was not able to track them?

Clearly the latter

[Peter Kesternich]

At this point, what I have a real problem is those people calling themselves experts and accident investigators out there. Nevermind that mainstream journalism doesn't know the first thing about aircraft and flight operations. But those same journalists have no expertise at all to determine if somebody is an expert when they get called on the phone by a self-proclaimed authority with an interesting story to tell.
Don't get me wrong - I know there are a lot of serious and determined people out there trying to figure out what happened to MH370. However, I suspect they share my scepticism about the media and are not really eager to talk to WSJ, NY Times, CNN and the like. So who does that leave us with?

[Gabriel]

Haha, is it no to turning the transponder off? Or, no, that ATC was not able to track them?

The ATC couldn't track them. They didn't know which of all the primary targets that there were around were the "lost" planes. The fighters were scrambled but ATC could not lead them to the "offending" airplanes.

Well, that's a bad answer.

Splitting hairs maybe, but I don't agree.
If I say "they were not", I am negating a sentence with "they were". How many of them can you find?

[Peter Kesternich]

I think we also need to make up our mind about the officials involved, Malaysian and to a lesser extent Chinese (and probably Vietnaemse). Are they...

a) master minds of a plot to conceal the truth from the world's public?

b) inept?

c) confused and overtaxed?

d) (insert more choices here)?

Currently, my money is on c)

[AndyToop]

Tell me which one isn't going to crash or disappear, they all have the potential. Track all commercial flights! Is it really that hard? I don't think so.

I think the industry has looked at this following on from a number of "disapearences" in the early years of comercial aviation. They cam up with an ingenious piece of kit called a transponder, which can be used to augment radar returns, which in isolation are quite limited . Its also been suplemented by acars. These all use radio and satelite communications that alow the plane to be tracked. Funnily enough in more or less the same way that cars, monkeys and thugs on parole are "tracked". Draw back on all of these - if the transponder is disabled... well your tracking stops at that point, which no longer corolates with the location of the thing being tracked.

[AVION1]

TWA800 flew several miles without 80% of the fuselage, before crashing into the ocean. Just saying.

[Brainsys]

TWA800 flew several miles without 80% of the fuselage, before crashing into the ocean. Just saying.

In other words 80% didn't. That would leave enough to find around the incident point.

It is pretty obvious now that the plane and contents are some distance from the last recorded point and that they were presumably flown there by the crew or others with some competence. The big question is whether this was an aircraft induced or human control incident.

The last recorded position is a sensible one to stealthily take control and that as long as they keep well away from land the chances of immediate detection/reaction are low. However it could not end happily unless they made land - and I assume no one is going to get a big and slow craft like a 777 into China undetected with or without transponder. The surrounding countries are reasonably densely populated so the chances are something would have been seen from the land. Even flying all the way to K2 would leave a footprint behind.

So its most likely to be in the sea somewhere and detection will be at a random time when some vessel or plane wanders that way or currents bring it into a major sea lane.

[PhoenixFlight]

Record for lost jumbo?

TWA800 flew several miles without 80% of the fuselage, before crashing into the ocean. Just saying.

I think this is the record for a Jumbo Jet being lost without a trace. the AF flight from Rio was lost for 5 days before debris was found. So could there have been a scenario like the AF-Airbus one? I know that was mostly pilot error. Was this terrorism (maybe those 2 Iranians with stolen passports after all?) Did China shoot it down by mistake and are now covering it up? Or did a Viet Cong hiding in the jungle who still thinks the war is on shoot it down? Any theories?

[AA 1818]

The ATC couldn't track them. They didn't know which of all the primary targets that there were around were the "lost" planes. The fighters were scrambled but ATC could not lead them to the "offending" airplanes.

Gabe (yup, get used to it), I am using your quote here, but anyone can chime in. How is it possible to 'make the airplane undetectable'? What steps would be needed to be done, in a regular (and/or in an emergency situation)? Also, why would someone ever need to de-activate a transponder?

On another topic - what is the range of a cellphone when flying? The reason I ask is, if something was seen or heard before the incident, it would be likely that someone on board would have tried to communicate something, anything, to the World. Does MAS have on-board Wifi capabilities? How much after take-off would an average cell-phone work in most cases?

Splitting hairs maybe, but I don't agree.
If I say "they were not", I am negating a sentence with "they were". How many of them can you find?

Ok. I agree.