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[Megasoum]

Nothing ridiculous about that theory, especially if it's confirmed the plane dropped to 5,000 feet.

You can't just park a 777 in the middle of a jungle and expect it to start right up like nothing happened a couple of weeks later.

No only would they need to find a lot of Jet-A fuel which you can't find at your local gas station but a modern airliner like a 777 require constant maintenance. Also, without proper ground power (which I assume they wouldn't have) you need to use the APUs to start the engines which is possible of course but it adds another layer of complexity on top of everything.

I'm not saying that the theory is impossible, but keep in mind that a 777 is not like a car that you can simply fill up the tank and turn the key to go.

Also how is the fact that it dropped to 5000 feets makes it easier? If anything it would actually makes things harder because flying at 5000 feets wastes a lot more fuel than flying at cruise altitude.

 

[Nyoro SF]

Wouldn't the plane have to refuel a large amount of its fuel to support such a theory

 

[jrDev]

Hard to internalize that a pilot can just steal an airplane with 239 people on it in 2014.

This is what I've been asking forever now! How is this possible, how the hell do these giant things not have trackers wtf?

 

[Betta Lines]

This is what I've been asking forever now! How is this possible, how the hell do these giant things not have trackers wtf?

This has been addressed multiple times in this thread.

 

[crozier]

You can't just park a 777 in the middle of a jungle and expect it to start right up like nothing happened a couple of weeks later.

No only would they need to find a lot of Jet-A fuel which you can't find at your local gas station but a modern airliner like a 777 require constant maintenance. Also, without proper ground power (which I assume they wouldn't have) you need to use the APUs to start the engines which is possible of course but it adds another layer of complexity on top of everything.

I'm not saying that the theory is impossible, but keep in mind that a 777 is not like a car that you can simply fill up the tank and turn the key to go.

Also how is the fact that it dropped to 5000 feets makes it easier? If anything it would actually makes things harder because flying at 5000 feets takes a lot more fuel than flying at cruise altitude.

You can park a 777 and take off a few weeks later with minimal servicing and no maintenance. Jet fuel is basically diesel too...I know JP 8 in the military is used in everything from aircraft to ground equipment, so I wouldn't be surprised if standard fuel would work just fine in a 777 in a pinch. Although there's no reason to assume that they couldn't acquire jet fuel if needed. If they can steal a plane, incapacitate the passengers and crew, evade civilian and military radar, land it at an undisclosed location, then hide it, acquiring a bit of fuel seems almost trivial. It's not like they track every ounce of the stuff like plutonium or something.

And yes, an APU would work in lieu of a generator. All that needs is fuel.

 

[jrDev]

This has been addressed multiple times in this thread.

Any answer?

 

[soxinthebox]

Nothing ridiculous about that theory, especially if it's confirmed the plane dropped to 5,000 feet.

You know what else you can find below 5000 feet?

Spoiler

The ocean.

 

[Prez]

This is really, REALLY good and just about sums everything up that's 100% confirmed, other than (5) and (6) which has yet to be commented on by Malaysian authorities.

If 5 and 6 are true the possible area of the southern arc can be significantly reduced due to min/max speed plot vs last verifiable location.

Is it 100% confirmed that the plane picked up by the military radar was the MH370?

All of this is just insane. It's like from a movie. A very unrealistic one.

 

[crozier]

Is it 100% confirmed that the plane picked up by the military radar was the MH370?

As close to 100% as they're going to get. I mean, it's essentially just a *blip* on the radar without the transponder on, but they had U.S. assistance and determined--based on the flight characteristics--that it was the missing 777.

 

[WalkMan]

It's hilarious to think that NSA wouldn't have the capability to automatically batch-analyze large volumes of imagery to search for anomalies. There are algorithms and sensors just for that purposes.

The pictures that these places like Tomnod and Google Earth have are just standard, visible light imagery. There are hyperspectral imaging sensors that exist that are able to detect things like metal objects and oil slicks from the air.

People like trying to play Internet hero I guess.

That's not a signals problem. Imagery would go to NRO/NGA which they actually do for various contracts. But this isn't a matter of concern for the US.

 

[Betta Lines]

Any answer?

To the question 'how does someone steal a plane in 2014' - we don't know if someone stole a plane.

To the question 'how the hell do these giant things not have trackers wtf' - the normal tracking/communication systems were disabled. Having a separate emergency tracker that can't be disabled and can permanently broadcast a location purely for situations like this is prohibitively expensive. However, after this mess, I guess such a thing may be reconsidered.

 

[HoosTrax]

That's not a signals problem. Imagery would go to NRO/NGA which they actually do for various contracts. But this isn't a matter of concern for the US.

Yeah my bad. I'm more familiar with the technology than who the customers who buy and use them / sift through the data are. Bottom line is, what's available to the be seen publicly online isn't nearly as useful as hyperspectral images which would show you with really obvious contrast what's not water, based on the different EM spectral signatures of various substances and materials.

 

[Falk]

That pilot sure took this song a little TOO LITERALLY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtFBRJFN3p8&feature=kp

I am very, very disappointed in you for not linking best version.

 

[Pandemic]

Can we use the evidence that the emergency beacon didn't or hasn't been activated, which signals that the plane has crashed on land or water, meaning it's landed somewhere?

Or is the emergency beacon unreliable?

 

[The Broken Ska Record]

Can we use the evidence that the emergency beacon didn't or hasn't been activated, which signals that the plane has crashed on land or water, meaning it's landed somewhere?

Or is the emergency beacon unreliable?

I think a few people have said that if it were to crash into the water, the beacon wouldn't be as strong.

 

[Anticitizen One]

How crazy would it be if this time it really is something beyond our understanding of nature like alien abduction or being transported to another world/dimension. Like this is the one, this is the catalyst right here.

 

[Tzeentch]

Yeah my bad. I'm more familiar with the technology than who the customers who buy and use them / sift through the data are. Bottom line is, what's available to the be seen publicly online isn't nearly as useful as hyperspectral images which would show you with really obvious contrast what's not water, based on the different EM spectral signatures of various substances and materials.

I would be VERY VERY surprised if they had multispectral (much less hyperspectral) imagery unless they were already following the aircraft for some reason. The scene size from such sensors is very small compared the vastness of the search areas.

 

[oipic]

Can we use the evidence that the emergency beacon didn't or hasn't been activated, which signals that the plane has crashed on land or water, meaning it's landed somewhere?

Or is the emergency beacon unreliable?

Could the functionality of the beacon itself be dependent on the availability/functionality of any of the other systems that had been disabled? Perhaps it too had been disabled, somehow?

Would be very surprising if it weren't completely independent of those, but given all the other aspects of this situation that I'd made incorrect assumptions about...

 

[Falk]

How crazy would it be if this time it really is something beyond our understanding of nature like alien abduction or being transported to another world/dimension. Like this is the one, this is the catalyst right here.

Is the other dimension the same distance from the satellite that picked up the 8:11AM ping as the two corridors?

 

[MThanded]

Is the other dimension the same distance from the satellite that picked up the 8:11AM ping as the two corridors?

Aliens were aware and faked the ping response to throw off the humans.

If I were an alien I would do this.

 

[Anticitizen One]

Is the other dimension the same distance from the satellite that picked up the 8:11AM ping as the two corridors?

yea dude haven't you ever watched FRINGE?

Parallel earths ya'heard

 

[Megasoum]

Can we use the evidence that the emergency beacon didn't or hasn't been activated, which signals that the plane has crashed on land or water, meaning it's landed somewhere?

Or is the emergency beacon unreliable?

In theory of course it's possible that the beacon didn't work. However, even if they did crash in the ocean and the beacon did work its range is somewhat limited at best. The Ocean is HUGE so you need to know where to search for it to work.

Could the functionality of the beacon itself be dependent on the availability/functionality of any of the other systems that had been disabled? Perhaps it too had been disabled, somehow?

Would be very surprising if it weren't completely independent of those, but given all the other aspects of this situation that I'd made incorrect assumptions about...

It is independant from the rest

 

[Pandemic]

And how do you keep 200+ passengers quiet for 7 hours..? They mentioned the plane would have wifi so people could have sent messages...

 

[rekameohs]

And how do you keep 200+ passengers quiet for 7 hours..? They mentioned the plane would have wifi so people could have sent messages...

Every single passenger was in on the con. So were every government and media outlet.

 

[soxinthebox]

And how do you keep 200+ passengers quiet for 7 hours..? They mentioned the plane would have wifi so people could have sent messages...

EMP grenades seems likely

 

[KHarvey16]

And how do you keep 200+ passengers quiet for 7 hours..? They mentioned the plane would have wifi so people could have sent messages...

I don't know that it was confirmed it did have wifi but if it did it could easily be turned off by anyone with enough knowledge to do everything else we know was done. Also if it was connected to the internet with GSM it likely wouldn't have signal anyway.

 

[Linkhero1]

And how do you keep 200+ passengers quiet for 7 hours..? They mentioned the plane would have wifi so people could have sent messages...

If it's true that the plane flew at about 45000 ft then the passengers were knocked out due to hypoxia. I'm not sure how long they would be out for since I'm not too familiar with hypoxia.


Edit: Yeah, I'm sure they have control over WiFi as well. It would be odd not to.

 

[Megasoum]

And how do you keep 200+ passengers quiet for 7 hours..? They mentioned the plane would have wifi so people could have sent messages...

If they know how to turn off both transponders, it's not really far fect to think that they know how to turn off the wifi too.

 

[Catchpenny]

Every single passenger was in on the con. So were every government and media outlet.

Everyone except me knows where the plane is. Why are you all being so mean?

 

[tino]

We have crossed the rubicon, folks.

Flight MH370 |OT2|: conspiracy go here and nowhere else

 

[FyreWulff]

And how do you keep 200+ passengers quiet for 7 hours..? They mentioned the plane would have wifi so people could have sent messages...

In theory, if the hijacker trained to fly outside of radar contact or minimize radar contact, they would bother to also research where the cell phone towers were and stay out of range of those as well.

Turn off the plane's internet access just in case, and nobody can call out or get out emails or IMs. The body of the plane itself would make a decent Faraday Cage so it'd be hard to pick up faint tower pings as well.

 

[crozier]

With regards to the passengers, is there any other theory (besides inducing hypoxia) as to why the plane would have climbed to 45,000 feet?

 

[Buba Big Guns]

why are some of you guys saying the passengers would be incapacitated due to hypoxia at 45000ft? Even though the 777 isn't rated to fly that high, I'd expect the cabin pressure to not be compromised, regardless of altitude.

This guy seems to confirm it:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngog...ngers-have-survived-777-ascent-to-45000-feet/

 

[ChainedMaster]

CNN is now saying that the most likely scenario is a professional pilot must have programmed the autopilot to turn at that exact spot.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/14/opinion/goyer-malaysia-flight/index.html

here are two ways the 777-200 could have flown on this path. After passing one waypoint, it could have been directed to fly to the next waypoint by a pilot turning the heading knob toward that exact place, a process that would require some piloting expertise. This would be very unusual, and a novice or pilot without much flying experience on this plane would not know to make these kinds of inputs or have any conceivable reason to do so

The almost certain explanation would be that these waypoints were programmed into the flight management system of the 777-200, a task that would have been beyond the abilities of anyone but a professional pilot. The autopilot follows the course put into the flight management system by the pilots. That is, when the autopilot is not being manually controlled instead. The manual control part is easy. You turn a knob and the airplane goes where you ask it to. The flight management system part is very complicated. I am a commercial pilot, and I have done some training on the Boeing 777. Even after a few hours of professional instruction I would have been unable to program the flight management system to command the autopilot to fly the flight plan that Flight 370 reportedly flew.

So basically the flight path follow exact autopilot checkpoints and it would be very unlikely for somebody to maneuver the plane by these exact checkpoints.

 

[toxicgonzo]

Ok, here's another question:

With half the world now looking for this plane, how difficult would it be to dismantle it and perhaps transport it to its next destination in sections, and then reassemble it?

It would very difficult. The plane isn't built like LEGO where you can take apart and snap back together again. Some of the fasteners are "one use" meaning once it gets put through the tool (like a rivet gun), plastic deformation occurs and it becomes very difficult to pull out. In the case that you could pull one out, you have to worry about the kind of damage you might do to a fastener hole. Cracks could develop and if you do this to enough fastener holes, the cracks could converge in a line under the right loading conditions and prematurely fail. You would need very specialized tools and experts in damage tolerance.

 

[Falk]

I think at this point most people in this thread would appreciate it if not just news channels but their sources were quoted in every new development. A name and position holds way more weight than simply "An official close to the investigation speaking on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to share this information"

 

[Megasoum]

why are some of you guys saying the passengers would be incapacitated due to hypoxia at 45000ft? Even though the 777 isn't rated to fly that high, I'd expect the cabin pressure to not be compromised, regardless of altitude.

This guy seems to confirm it:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngog...ngers-have-survived-777-ascent-to-45000-feet/

No, people are saying that the pilot went to 45 000 feets and then depressurized the cabin to kill the passengers. Which would be a bit dumb imo... why waste fuel to go over the operating ceiling of the plane ot depressurize the cabin when you could do the exact same thing at the cruise altitude.

 

[Daria]

And how do you keep 200+ passengers quiet for 7 hours..? They mentioned the plane would have wifi so people could have sent messages...

This plane didn't have wifi

 

[breakfuss]

Ok, here's another question:

With half the world now looking for this plane, how difficult would it be to dismantle it and perhaps transport it to its next destination in sections, and then reassemble it?

LoLoL. Not a laughing matter but I am literally in tears. This beats the aircraft carrier theory.

 

[AtomicShroom]

why are some of you guys saying the passengers would be incapacitated due to hypoxia at 45000ft? Even though the 777 isn't rated to fly that high, I'd expect the cabin pressure to not be compromised, regardless of altitude.

This guy seems to confirm it:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngog...ngers-have-survived-777-ascent-to-45000-feet/

Because it has been confirmed by knowledgeable people that disabling passenger cabin pressure through electrical breakers is possible if the pilot knows how.

 

[toxicgonzo]

LoLoL. Not a laughing matter but I am literally in tears. This beats the aircraft carrier theory.

I dunno, this redditor is a contender. He wrote this days after it went missing.

 

[MIMIC]

Lord

 

[Trouble]

I dunno, this redditor is a contender. He wrote this days after it went missing.

That can't be serious.

 

[Freaky Fred]

LoLoL. Not a laughing matter but I am literally in tears. This beats the aircraft carrier theory.

not everybody is an expert, and it's not a terrible question..

I dunno, this redditor is a contender. He wrote this days after it went missing.

ok this is pretty dumb, but at least he acknowledges that fact.

 

[Uhyve]

Because it has been confirmed by knowledgeable people that disabling passenger cabin pressure through electrical breakers is possible if the pilot knows how.

But would the pilot even need to go to 45000ft to cause hypoxia if he's just going to compromise cabin pressure anyway?

 

[Mikey Jr.]

Just one more satellite tracking that fucking plane. Just one more satellite and we could have narrowed it down dramatically.

God dammit.

 

[breakfuss]

not everybody is an expert, and it's not a terrible question...

It's not silly to ask if a 777 can be disassembled and put back together? Assuming it was plausible how many people would it take to do some shit like that? Nevermind the motivations (none of which I can think of).

 

[AtomicShroom]

But would the pilot even need to go to 45000ft to cause hypoxia if he's just going to compromise cabin pressure anyway?

Absolutely not. However, it would occur much faster. This has been theorized as one possible reasons why he went to that height.

 

[tino]

It's not silly to ask if a 777 can be disassembled and put back together? Assuming it was plausible how many people would it take to do some shit like that? Nevermind the motivations (none of which I can think of).

Probably Boeing itself doesn't have the equiptment to assemble a 777 outside of US.

 

[maquiladora]

Posted?

In an exclusive story, the government-backed paper said investigators analysing MH370’s flight data revealed that the 200-tonne, fully laden twinjet descended 1,500m or even lower to evade commercial (secondary) radar coverage after it turned back from its flight path en route to Beijing
.....

Investigators pouring over MH370’s flight data had said the plane had flown low and used “terrain masking” as it flew over the Bay of Bengal and headed north towards land, the NST reported.

Officials, who formed the technical team, were looking into the possibility that whoever was piloting the jet at that time had taken advantage of the busy airways over the Bay of Bengal and stuck to a commercial route to avoid raising the suspicion of those manning primary (military) radars, the paper said.

“The person who had control over the aircraft has a solid knowledge of avionics and navigation and left a clean track. It passed low over Kelantan, that was true,” the NST quoted an anonymous official as saying.
....

The NST quoting sources said the probe would now focus on regions with disused airports equipped with long runways capable of handling a plane like the Boeing 777.

http://news.malaysia.msn.com/tmi/mh370-flew-as-low-as-1500m-to-avoid-detection-says-paper#scpshrtu