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MH370: A different point of view

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Re: MH370: A different point of view

#21

Post by cornholio »

johnw wrote: post #10

One big hole in this theory is that its been widely reported [1] that a transponder was switched off before the pilots last radio contact. The pilots would have had no reason to pull the breakers before the last communication if they weren't already aware of a fire. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/17/world/asia/malaysia-airlin...

Another massive hole is that the closest airport ,at the point where communication was lost, was Sultan Mahmud in Kuala Terengganu. Long runway, approach directly from sea, can accommodate a 747 according to Wikipedia. There is no justification to go to Langkawi which is on the other side of the Malay Peninsula.

Re: MH370: A different point of view

#23

Post by keepontruckin »

I took a flight on a 777 from Dulles to London a couple years ago. A few hours into the flight the captain announced a suspected cabin fire and the smell of smoke in the cockpit. The crew shut off all the circuits they didn't need to fly the plane, the captain took a left turn, and we made an emergency landing at Reykjavik. Just sayin'.

Re: MH370: A different point of view

#24

Post by nl »

Implicated wrote: post #13
wikiburner wrote: post #8

This doesn't explain the zigzagging trajectory of the plane after its disappearance: Indeed, soon after MH370 disappeared, reports emerged that recordings of Malaysian military radar returns showed an unidentified track that could correspond to the flight turning left onto a westward course and descending. At the time it was difficult to assess the validity of that claim. It’s been bolstered, however, by a Reuters re…

or the climb to 45k

Plenty of weird reasons to climb like that[1]. I think people dramatically underestimate how mechanical and/or electronic system failure combines with human misjudgement to make things operate in entirely unpredictable ways.

I've never been involved in an air crash investigation, but I have done many system outage investigations. The majority of them[2] involve a failure of a hardware/software system, followed by manual intervention done without complete information. The number of times I've seen small problems escalate dramatically by the combination of automatic systems and manual intervention is enough to make me assume accident when something like this happens.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447#Final_rep...

[2] Ok, the majority that don't involve the deployment of new software.

Re: MH370: A different point of view

#26

Post by davidw »

DrJokepu wrote: post #19
tomelders wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying the best way to figure out what happened to MH370 is to do nothing, don't think, don't have any ideas, in no way make any effort to interpret the facts as they present themselves or try to fill in the blanks with educated guesses? Nice plan.

Well it definitely won't be bloggers and armchair investigators who figure it out. Unfounded speculation is irresponsible and immature behaviour the very least.

Some people seem to enjoy it as a sort of creative challenge, it seems, which I guess doesn't really hurt anyone (I don't envision the victims' families reading these threads). That's fine as far as it goes, although these threads always seem to branch out into bizarro conspiracy theories about the Mossad trying to smuggle the Reptilians' sacred crystals into Liechtenstein and wondering about why the "all-powerful, all-seeing" governments are hiding what they know about it.

Re: MH370: A different point of view

#27

Post by whyleyc »

_nedR wrote: post #11

One problem with the theory: The first communication system was shut down before the pilot's last message 'All right, good night'. If it had been an accidental fire that caused the pilot to cycle the systems, I would imagine the last message would have been more along the lines of "Holy Smokey Bear, the plane's on fire!"

See wikiburner's comment:

Damage from an electrical fire on board could possibly explain the first transponder going out, even if the crew wasn't aware of the fire yet

Re: MH370: A different point of view

#28

Post by rosswilson »

userbinator wrote: post #15

The part about tire fires producing "horrific incapacitating smoke" seemed a bit odd to me --- the landing gear are located outside the pressurised part of the fuselage.

Read about Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigeria_Airways_Flight_2120).

An under-inflated tyre caught fire during take-off, the plane took off unaware of the fire, when the landing gear was retracted the fire spread burning through electrical and hydraulic lines.

A fire "outside of the pressurised part of the fuselage" doesn't mean the same didn't happen here.

Re: MH370: A different point of view

#29

Post by InclinedPlane »

hauget wrote: post #2

The big thing that's been bothering me about the hijacking hypothesis is that there's no clear logical motive behind it. This indeed makes more sense than anything else I've read so far.

What do you mean? There's plenty of motive for hijacking, just as always. Especially a flight filled with Chinese civilians headed to China. There has been a rash of terrorist attacks within China recently from Xinjiang separatists, including several different mass stabbing attacks just this year which have claimed dozens of lives.

One might hypothesize that terrorists managed to take control of the airplane and divert it only to have the passengers counter-attack and then in the chaos that followed either control of the plane was lost and not able to be recovered or it was intentionally crashed. Even with reinforced doors it would not take very long for highly motivated individuals to breach them, whether that's the attackers or the passengers or whomever.

I'm not saying that anything of the sort is likely but similar things have happened before.

Re: MH370: A different point of view

#30

Post by chris_wot »

tomelders wrote: post #20
chris_wot wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how idle speculation has been helpful in finding the plane in any way?

I'm curious how an army of people from military and civil aviation organisations, including radar operators, Satellite Image analysis, air accident investigators, air traffic control and pilots, have been helpful in finding the plane in any way. This is an unusual situation, and none of the facts seem to make any sense. Who care's who is trying to make sense of what happened? If I was one of those passengers, I would…

You don't have to be curious. They are using data and have sent crews out looking for the plane. They have experts in their field coordinating the search. People who have expertise in radar, Satellite Image analysis, air accident investigations, air traffic control and actual ability to fly a plane.

I was merely commenting that it's funny how there is one story that MH370 may have snuck under radar by shadowing another 777, and this article says there was a fire. Perhaps the fire caused the crew to shadow the 777? Or maybe the 777 caused the cabin fire?

I am, of course, being facetious. But when they do eventually find MH370, it's unlikely it would have been because of speculation on the Internet.

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