OT: Flight MH370

[Rainbow Six]

Originally Posted by Targan

I've been following this story too. In my professional life I'm a supervisor at a government media monitoring unit so the news is kind of my thing. This is a really strange case. Solid information has been really slow to trickle out. There's still not really enough data to make a solid prediction. Here's my take on things:

The aircraft's transponder was probably deliberately switched off. I'm no airline pilot but I guess that can be done from the cockpit. The system that sends engineering data back to home base probably can't be switched off from the cockpit (maybe from the avionics bay below the cockpit?) and whoever had control of the aircraft either didn't know about that system, didn't know how to turn it off or didn't want to leave the cockpit to disable it.

The aircraft's movements after the transponder was switched off seem to have been deliberate. It's looking like someone initiated a radical course change and then flew the aircraft nap of earth on an entirely new heading (or as close to nap of earth as you effectively can fly a commercial passenger jet). That sort of action suggests that someone wanted to land the plane intact and undetected. Why would you bother to do all that if you were just going to crash the plane on purpose? Makes no sense.

There has been some suggestion that the engineering data updates back to home base continued past the time that the aircraft would have run out of fuel if still in flight. Logic would suggest that this means the aircraft was already on the ground somewhere and the APU was on. The APU could continue to run for hours longer than the main engines.

But then the waters get muddied even further by stories like this:
Oil rig worker says he saw Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 burst into flames

Conclusions: It either blew up in flight (terrorist attack or catastrophic malfunction, who knows?) and hasn't been found because there's a whole lot of empty ocean out there, or it was hijacked by a person/persons unknown and was landed somewhere, probably in SW Asia. If it was all done by a terrorist organisation, why no claims of responsibility? Why no intel suggesting an op was being prepared or was in play? I'm not big on conspiracy theories at all, but this case is a really strange one. I'm almost prepared to believe it was a government or corporate black op. That would explain why no-one has said anything about why it was done. Unfortunately, if that is the case, the passengers and crew may end up dead anyway, to tie up loose ends.

Please, I welcome the above thoughts being critiqued. What have I missed?

Edit: Just had a look through the links others have posted. Some really interesting theories there too.

Sky News this morning was revisiting the theory that there may have been a fire (or some other incident, but not terrorism) in the cockpit that neccessitated the shutting down of the transponder and other systems by the pilots (not as an act of sabotage but to try and save the aircraft) followed by a turn towards land to try and make an emergency landing, however for whatever reason pilots were incapacitated resulting in the plane flying on under autopilot until it ran out of fuel somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Apparently several aviation "experts" have asserted that this is one of the more plausible explanations. There are also reports that the plane heading south rather than north is supported by Australian data from the Jindalee radar network.

I know that theory contradicts some of the "facts" that have been released but there have already been several contradictions and about turns since the plane first went missing. I wouldn't call it a conspiracy theory per se, but it seems to me that some Governments may not be comfortable with sharing all the data they have either because it exposes how ineffective their systems are (in the event they couldn't / didn't trace the flight) or exposes that they have capabilities that others don't know about (for example one report states that the Jindalee radar has a greater range than its officially declared 3,000km).

[RN7]

Their now saying that MH370 was seen flying over the Maldives on March 8th roughly 8 hours after it last made contact. It wasn't picked up by any radar but was supposedly seen by many locals flying very low. The theory of terrain masking; avoiding radar by positioning the aircraft low enough to the ground to allow the earth mask the airplane from radar waves; is now being circled about. The Maldives are due east of the African east coast and Somalia.

[Rainbow Six]

I read about the Maldives sightings earlier but I thought they had been discounted by various parties. Distance from the Maldives to Mogadishu appears to be roughly the same as London to Athens (or New York to Denver); I'm fairly sure that based on the fuel that the plane was carrying it didn't have the range to get from its last point of contact to Somalia (or anywhere else in Africa). Yemen was also out of its range.

[Rainbow Six]

This map is posted on another site and shows what is believed to be the maximum range of the plane from its last point of contact just off the Malaysian coast (the red circle). The red dots are known airfields capable of taking a 777

[kato13]

I'm actually considering a poll on this one.

These are some of the options I have seen suggested.

Pilot and/or Copilot Suicide
Hijacking for Terrorism
Mechanical/Electrical Failure/Fire
Hijacking for Ransom
Hijacking for Theft of Aircraft (Generally for future terrorism)
Hijacking for Cargo
Shot Down (Military)
Shot Down (Terrorist)
Dharma Initiative/Aliens/Other

Are there any others?

[Rainbow Six]

Hijacking in order to steal cargo. As far as I know cargo manifest has not been released to the public and there are question marks as to whether it was carrying more cargo weight than might be considered normal (justification for this is that some passengers were only accepted on a standby basis although the flight was nowhere near full). That has led to speculation in some parts that it might have been carrying gold bullion.

[Cdnwolf]

They think they found debris SOUTH of Perth Australia... Targan... go out there and check will you.