How secure is the 777s flight management system? Could you hijack the controls (remotely or with temporary physical access) and prevent manual overrides when the change is noticed?
Did Malaysian Airlines 370 disappear using SIA68/SQ68 (another 777)?
381–390 of 397 posts
Re: Did Malaysian Airlines 370 disappear using SIA68/SQ68 (another 777)?
#382The folks over at airliners.net have pointed out that the 777's collision avoidance system only works if both planes' transponders are turned on. That doesn't mean this scenario is impossible, but it does raise the level of sophistication required. Sadly, I feel like whatever happened, the amount of sophistication involved increasingly points toward the involvement of one or more state actors. If that's the case, I'm…
I think the level of sophistication required increasingly points to a much simpler explanation than terrorism.
I was lolling my head off. I never understood why a way more complicated explanation is more appealing to people.
Re: Did Malaysian Airlines 370 disappear using SIA68/SQ68 (another 777)?
#383Earlier quoted context omitted.
why do people underestimate what terrorist groups are capable of? Some have training from various countries and quite a few have financial and material backing. If anything, the common theme on this site was to find every possible explanation other than terrorism. Sorry to be the party pooper, but there are people out there who operate without regard to our beliefs and at times love to exploit the stories we tell our…
Acts of violence without the "publicity" are not terrorism.
Spot on, why would a terrorist guy hijack a plane, fly under the radar following another planes just to hide itself? They could just hijack the plane and fly straight to the target and crash into it 911 style...
Re: Did Malaysian Airlines 370 disappear using SIA68/SQ68 (another 777)?
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
why do people underestimate what terrorist groups are capable of? Some have training from various countries and quite a few have financial and material backing. If anything, the common theme on this site was to find every possible explanation other than terrorism. Sorry to be the party pooper, but there are people out there who operate without regard to our beliefs and at times love to exploit the stories we tell our…
Yes, but I think what Herbig is saying is that the increased sophistication of assumptions means decreased likelihood that this was a deliberate hijacking. We get further away from Occam's razor in order to satisfy that. As of yet we haven't seen any group take responsibility, no claims of hostages or anything remotely indicative of this. So if it was taken by a terrorist group, where is the terrorism they plan to co…
What if it was a heist? With a price tag of ~300 Million dollars it is a tempting target for some sophisticated thieves.
Re: Did Malaysian Airlines 370 disappear using SIA68/SQ68 (another 777)?
#385Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but I think what Herbig is saying is that the increased sophistication of assumptions means decreased likelihood that this was a deliberate hijacking. We get further away from Occam's razor in order to satisfy that. As of yet we haven't seen any group take responsibility, no claims of hostages or anything remotely indicative of this. So if it was taken by a terrorist group, where is the terrorism they plan to co…
When, on that sliding scale, does a hijacking become a theft?
Not sure if your question is rhethorical, but… a hijacking is when what you are stealing moves on its own (and you use that ability in the process of getting it). If you ask: When does a hi-jacking becomes a theft? as in: it still was a hijacking, but actually should be understood as a theft? Well, depending on what you mean: either when what is being carried inside is more valuable than the carrier (i.e. the hijacking was just a convenient way to get the thing) or, when, oppositely, the carrier is more valuable that what is being carried (and the hijacking was actually the theft of the vehicle, not its content).
In other words: Yes. I’m not sure what you meant, but the answer is yes.
Re: Did Malaysian Airlines 370 disappear using SIA68/SQ68 (another 777)?
#386Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the level of sophistication required increasingly points to a much simpler explanation than terrorism.
I was lolling my head off. I never understood why a way more complicated explanation is more appealing to people.
For two reasons: simplicity doesn’t really have a good metric to be minimised, not when it comes to unexpected, seemingly daring or irrational behaviour. Batman’s Jocker character provides tons of example of that, but more to the point at stake: some might see a plane cashing without a trace as complex, while others think hiding is hard. Some might see a highly normalised Relational table as simple, because it can be safely explored it it’s entire possibility space, while others prefer to have no norm, and one long list of untyped events, because its assumed structure is straightforward.
When it comes to likelihood and explanations, Dan Ariely has done tremendous work on explaining how a more detailed story, especially one pandering to our anecdotal prejudice, seems more likely: He commonly gives the example of how a shy person seems more likely to become a librarian than a factory worker but… ‘shy’ isn’t very specific trait, and the less glamorous option is ten times more likely overall, making the likelihood for a shy person to be screwing bolts far higher, dozens of times actually, than lending books.
There you have both: Are they terrorists? Are they skilled? Can pilots make mistakes? Both are unlikely events that may or may not match our experience, actually our mediated experience: few people have met active terrorist and lived (well, the same Dan Ariely is a known exception) or been flown by a bad pilot and been able to tell the story.
It's not complexity that they like, as much as a comfortable prejudice, that either Hollywood-grade airplane-acrobatics are common, or that horrible people are very cunning. You can quote statistics, but then again I don’t recommend it: you’ll become tedious, dull and insensitive before you are even done explaining your methodology about average-end-of-quality-of-life (death is too… binary) and how airplane catastrophies are actually generally positive.
I, for one, can’t get out of my head that there is an increasing disparity in every industry, especially all cultural ones, leading to PR becoming overly sophisticated, and that promoting a movie requires connexion to up to News casters (obviously, see all ‘promo’ segments) that might have been upped to pirates (for documenting Captain Philipps) therefore… this must be Liam Neeson promoting his latest action flick. That’s like, such a good idea I can’t believe no one has tried it earlier.
Re: Did Malaysian Airlines 370 disappear using SIA68/SQ68 (another 777)?
#387Earlier quoted context omitted.
Neither of which are requirements to do serious damage, and as has been said numerous times before, there are plenty of other planes that meet that criteria that could have been obtained much more easily and not in full view of the public eye.
"Neither of which are requirements to do serious damage" 777-200-er has the range of a tu with hunreds of thousands of pounds more payload and it hold 20x the fuel of a citation x with 10x the mass. It also has double the range of a 777 freighter, with a similar maximum takeoff weight. So these are not interchangeble, but yes they are options.
But they are still not requirements to do serious damage. Do you understand? Someone seeking to do serious damage has much less conspicuous options at their disposal.
Re: Did Malaysian Airlines 370 disappear using SIA68/SQ68 (another 777)?
#388Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aum Shinrikyo aerosolised and released anthrax for a week. They were caught. They didn't make any announcement about it. Announcing it a few days afterwards would have caused significant panic and distress. (Luckily they used the "wrong" anthrax, so not much harm done). The same organisation also did odd things in Australia. They made sarin and VX gas, tested that on sheep, and the. Used the gases in several assassin…
You mean "was", "had", and "were", since everybody connected with the sarin attacks is now arrested or dead. The rump "Aleph" group is a shadow of its former self, has renounced their predecessor's tactics, and is very heavily monitored. Also, IIRC Aum never used anthrax (although they did stockpile it), only sarin and VX, which are chemical agents, not biological.
I'm kind of relieved that they are much diminished.
Here are some links to the anthrax stuff:
http://www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/CNAS_AumShi...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC88589/#!po=5.952...
This attack could have been significantly worse.
Re: Did Malaysian Airlines 370 disappear using SIA68/SQ68 (another 777)?
#389This is not an hijack terrorism. Terrorism is all about showing off, theatrics, fear. No one would make a plane disappear for the sake of terrorism. I have only two theories 1. China or some other country shot it down by mistake and trying to cover up. 2. Something of immense importance was present on that plane or may be a person. In either cases substantial involvement of some state needs to be there.
That is not necessarily true. If it is terrorism, it's possible this isn't over, and that the plane will be used in a future high-profile attack. And if the target was passengers, cargo, or something else entirely I don't think that logically leads to it being state-sponsored.
If the plane is stolen for a future attack they have unnecessarily taken too much of trouble
- First plan a theft which is incredibly difficult that hijacking and then ramming it somewhere
- Then actually keep it hidden while half the world is searching for it.
- Get rid of those passengers
- Hiding a Boeing 777 is not same as hiding a cookie jar. The plane will need a runway, fuel etc. which needs to be provided for and can be easily tracked.
- Terrorism is all about surprise. There is no surprise involved here. All the countries will now be much more cautious with any object that appears on their radar.
Re: Did Malaysian Airlines 370 disappear using SIA68/SQ68 (another 777)?
#390I think Keith is on the right track (excuse the pun).
1. The weather. Check on that. On a clear night it is possible to sneak up behind and tail an aircraft. Night Fighters did it all the time in WW2. And they had to get close enough and hang on and to check "friend or foe"! 2. Not sure where the FIR boundary was, but if it was close to their westward track (last radio call was a handover) more doubt on the ground. 3. They could have listened in to the radio calls of SIA68 with their radio. That would have given them height and position info too. So long as they did not transmit, nobody could have picked up anything from that. 4. If they had also switched off all the navigation lights nobody on the ground, or in SIA would be likely to have seen anything - rear view from a commercial aircraft is nil! Two aircraft at 35000 feet sound the same as one. 5. Timing on one other score was perfect. Night flight when radar operators are dozy, landing just before dawn - time to camouflage the plane from satellites, and a diversion of a China sea crash to confuse everyone.
Good thinking, keep it up. Looking forward to more insights!