YEAH....wait, whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 ended in the Southern Indian Ocean
- Thread starter Oersted
- Start date
- Status
YEAH....wait, whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?
Seems that the media is responsible for a lot of this misinformation. Running stories as if they are confirmed to be true. Then Malaysia has to get on TV and debunk media reports.
China "accidentally" releasing the images is odd. Guess you could blame the media in China for that too.
Beginning to think we may never find out what happened to this plane.
China "accidentally" releasing the images is odd. Guess you could blame the media in China for that too.
Beginning to think we may never find out what happened to this plane.
As I understand it, these satellite photos were "accidentally" released on the website of China's State Administration for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.
Guess they could claim that they jumped the gun. A lot of experts don't believe the size of the wreckage aligned with anything related to the missing plane.
Honestly, at this point that seems as likely to lead to the discovery of the plane as anything the Malaysian government seems to be doing.
It takes time to figure out where planes that disappeared over the ocean went. Air France 447 took a couple of years, SAA 295 disappeared in 1987 and they didn't get their hands on the black box until 1989. This kind of delay is not that unusual, it can be really fucking hard to find a plane that's vanished over water.
Miggytronz
Member
At this point just say Aliens.
Air France debri was found in less than a week if I remember correctly. I'm not saying we will find the black box but we currently have no idea where this plane is/was when it crashed. We are not even sure what direction it was going.
Absolutely not. Not with that battery life.
criesofthepast
Member
How is engine data sent to Rolls Royce in flight? If there was a total electrical failure could that data still be sent off to them?
Man I'm so confused by all this. These investigators have been awful fuckups and should be fired.
Man I'm so confused by all this. These investigators have been awful fuckups and should be fired.
Maybe that was his point :V
edit: I'm disappointed the oil slick guy specifically was not talked about in today's PC.
MoGamesXNA
Unconfirmed Member
.
JetBlackPanda
Member
Well I'm convinced there is some kind of coverup going on.
Every single lead is false and now we have SAT images that were released by mistake? And don't have anything to do with the plane? Meanwhile engine data leak is "inaccurate"
Every single lead is false and now we have SAT images that were released by mistake? And don't have anything to do with the plane? Meanwhile engine data leak is "inaccurate"
Considering the facts at hand (no evidence of plane crash i.e. no floating debris found, no mayday/distress calls, transponders used for tracking airplane turned/shut off, and not checking in with Vietnamese ATC), two hypotheses have been bumped up on my "most likely scenarios" list:
1) Less likely, but Ethiopian Airlines Flight 702 was hijacked just a few weeks ago. Why?
2) More likely- inside job by pilot or co-pilot, most likely co-pilot. Having something catastrophic happen on a plane, especially one as safe as a 777 would be a rare occurrence. Having it happen right during a handoff? Even less likely to happen. Furthermore, either the ACARS system or the crew would have notified ATC if something was amiss. My proposed scenario- Captain says "alright, good night" to ATC preparing for Vietnamese handoff. Co-pilot sneaks up behind him (maybe he came back from the restroom?) and bashed the captain in the head rendering him unconscious. This could explain the mumbling that was heard by another pilot after establishing contact with MH370 (Edit: this part may not be true). It's probable that only a pilot or someone with a lot of experience could disable all communications/transponders/tracking devices. However, would the co-pilot who himself was transitioning to the 777 be familiar enough with the aircraft to do all of these things? Personality-wise, we already know he has a record of not going by the book. The captain, on the other hand, had a lot of experience and even conducted pilot simulation tests. He was an aviation enthusiast as seen by his flight simulation setup at home. He's less likely to go against the grain, so to speak.
If it's scenario 2, the question then becomes 'why?' Perhaps it was a blackmail scenario or the pilots were caught up with some bad people. However, what would anyone do with a 777? You can't really sell it on the black market and if you try flying it into any competent country, it'd get shot down before it got close to anything important. If you're going to steal a plane, a small one or a helicopter would seem far more practical, not a flying elephant (so to speak).
Murder-suicide seems like another possibility, but every day where we don't find washed up debris hurts the chances of this being likely. What would even be the point of a murder-suicide in this fashion anyway? If you didn't want to hurt other people, you would just kill yourself away from an aircraft. If you wanted to maximize death, you'd crash into a city. It's less likely for them to crash into the water and even less likely for them to fly a long distance and then crash into the water if murder-suicide was what happened.
I used to like the depressurization theory, but I think it was because I was biased towards wanting everyone to be good people doing their best to get everyone to their destination safely. Depressurization would require the crew to be rendered unconscious before they noticed (and alert ATC) AND take out transponders/ACARS. Possible, but having this happen right when Malaysia ATC was handing off to Vietnam seems like a stretch.
EDIT: Edited slightly for clarity although I'm going to leave the bulk of the post up so people can point and laugh. This isn't a "this is a conspiracy" post, but if this were a "normal" plane crash with "normal" reasons, then there would be telltale evidence of it.
1) Less likely, but Ethiopian Airlines Flight 702 was hijacked just a few weeks ago. Why?
An asylum seeker? Sounds awfully familiar. And this was extremely recently. Some have speculated that last month's Ethiopian Flight 702 was just a dry run for MH370. I've read on another site that one of the seekers of asylum on this plane had an electrical engineering as well as flight simulation background (unverified). I don't think this is likely what happened for several reasons, but it's a possibility.
2) More likely- inside job by pilot or co-pilot, most likely co-pilot. Having something catastrophic happen on a plane, especially one as safe as a 777 would be a rare occurrence. Having it happen right during a handoff? Even less likely to happen. Furthermore, either the ACARS system or the crew would have notified ATC if something was amiss. My proposed scenario- Captain says "alright, good night" to ATC preparing for Vietnamese handoff. Co-pilot sneaks up behind him (maybe he came back from the restroom?) and bashed the captain in the head rendering him unconscious. This could explain the mumbling that was heard by another pilot after establishing contact with MH370 (Edit: this part may not be true). It's probable that only a pilot or someone with a lot of experience could disable all communications/transponders/tracking devices. However, would the co-pilot who himself was transitioning to the 777 be familiar enough with the aircraft to do all of these things? Personality-wise, we already know he has a record of not going by the book. The captain, on the other hand, had a lot of experience and even conducted pilot simulation tests. He was an aviation enthusiast as seen by his flight simulation setup at home. He's less likely to go against the grain, so to speak.
If it's scenario 2, the question then becomes 'why?' Perhaps it was a blackmail scenario or the pilots were caught up with some bad people. However, what would anyone do with a 777? You can't really sell it on the black market and if you try flying it into any competent country, it'd get shot down before it got close to anything important. If you're going to steal a plane, a small one or a helicopter would seem far more practical, not a flying elephant (so to speak).
Murder-suicide seems like another possibility, but every day where we don't find washed up debris hurts the chances of this being likely. What would even be the point of a murder-suicide in this fashion anyway? If you didn't want to hurt other people, you would just kill yourself away from an aircraft. If you wanted to maximize death, you'd crash into a city. It's less likely for them to crash into the water and even less likely for them to fly a long distance and then crash into the water if murder-suicide was what happened.
I used to like the depressurization theory, but I think it was because I was biased towards wanting everyone to be good people doing their best to get everyone to their destination safely. Depressurization would require the crew to be rendered unconscious before they noticed (and alert ATC) AND take out transponders/ACARS. Possible, but having this happen right when Malaysia ATC was handing off to Vietnam seems like a stretch.
EDIT: Edited slightly for clarity although I'm going to leave the bulk of the post up so people can point and laugh. This isn't a "this is a conspiracy" post, but if this were a "normal" plane crash with "normal" reasons, then there would be telltale evidence of it.
You got to be kidding me.
Possible that there was something on the plane worth a large sum of money? Rather than selling the plane itself, if you wanted to transport something worth a significant amount of money to someone you'd probably transport it on an inconspicuous passenger plane. If someone got wind of this item being on the plane, and wanted it, they could have paid off the pilot/co-pilot.
Hmm. Not impossible, but very very small chance IMO. There'd be zero chance for the crew to ever have a normal life again for veering off course like that. They'd (likely) have to kill 200+ passengers (or I guess traffick them if they thought that would work). Then the plane would have to get to its destination without hitting any primary radar stations and find a runway where the 777 could land at.
I've heard a rumor (more like conspiracy theory) that the semiconductor tech team that was on board was the target for a scenario like one you're proposing. Seems like it'd be way too much trouble when they could just pay like 4-5 workers to leave their jobs and work for them.
EDIT: I read on another forum that there were possibly a good amount of flammable canisters in the cargo bay which could support the catastrophic structural failure or depressurization theories (since fire would eat up all the oxygen) but this claim was unverified and could just be coming out of someone's ass.
At last they found StarDust. Sure we'll never know what STENDEC was about, but it may not have even been STENDEC, its a mystery.
Sounds like the media.
LanceVance
Member
I am so glad you are not an investigator. What evidence is there to suggest any of this? The copilot hitting the pilot over the head with a blunt object and taking over? Really??
cartoon_soldier
Member
I think he just watches a lot of CSI
That's a possible scenario. I'm not saying that's what happened. It's obvious that any method used to incapacitate either or both pilots (unless both were in on it) is equivalent.
Facts:
1) Airplane transponder stopped working or was turned off.
2) Crew was unable or unwilling to communicate with ATC.
*Points 1 and 2 happened after they checked out with Malaysian ATC and before they were supposed to check in with Vietnamese ATC. I'm not a pilot, but I imagine this isn't a time-consuming process and is done just by changing frequencies which should take seconds.
3) Airplane wreckage has not yet been found with dozens of satellites (China + USA + Private firms), ships, planes, etc. scouring likely crash sites. That the airplane itself hasn't been found isn't strange but that no debris at all has been found is quite remarkable.
4) ACARS did not send out any signal even though it's designed to do so during times of disaster (as stated during the press conference). This could mean it was working fine (no catastrophic event) or disabled (manually or otherwise).
EDIT: 5) As of now, as far as we know, the plane has not shown up on any other country's primary radar.
There are three likely things that happened:
1) Catastrophic event/explosion.
2) Depressurization
3) Hijacking (whether via passengers or pilots)
If you would like to reconcile all those facts and come up with a more likely scenario, feel free. The Boeing 777 is one of the safest aircraft out there. A catastrophic event that would disable one of those is already hard enough to believe, but one at exactly the time where the pilots were supposed to check in with the Vietnamese ATC? AND there's no wreckage that's been found yet?
You ask where is the evidence for my claims. News flash- there is no evidence for anything right now. All we can do is speculate and based on what we know. Thus, I think the most likely scenario is that the crew took over the flight for some reason or another. I will admit that I'm just speculating, but I like how you take a random example that itself wasn't even the point and try to discredit my entire post based on that. It doesn't matter if the copilot hit the captain over the head or the captain poured chloroform on a rag and put it in the co-pilot's face.
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
Simplest solution for the future: Install cameras in cockpit. Aircrafts these days are and can be equipped with WiFi. It'll cost them a fraction of what they spend on these investigations.
Valkyr Junkie
Member
I'm sure the pilot unions will love that ^^^
LanceVance
Member
The majority of airline disasters are because of a system failure or pilot error. Not a pilot/co-pilot gone rouge. You said yourself that a hi-jacking or pilot/co-pilot gone rogue were the two most likely scenarios in your head. And I say this is not the most likely scenario. News-flash - you're correct there is no evidence right now, therefore, looking back at past disasters would give us more of an idea of what might have happened then suddenly throwing wild assumptions around about co-pilots going rouge, knocking out the pilot and taking over control.
Also the hypothesis with the least assumptions more often than not turns out to be the correct hypothesis. Your most likely scenarios are all based off wild assumptions which don't have a shred of evidence to back them up.
WiFi in the cabin requires GSM or satellite data connections. If those are functioning the airline is receiving location data. In this case, assuming communications were not working a camera wouldn't have made any difference.
The false rumor regarding engine data transmission is strange. Unlike the radar return thing that could have been confusion regarding unidentified or misidentified returns this almost has to be wholly fabricated.
This whole thing is fucked...
Engine data saying the plane flew for 4 hours was denied - WHAT?
Chinese satellite images weren't supposed to be released and don't show wreckage - HUH?
Police haven't searched the home of the pilot - ......
What all seemed legit, especially the Chinese satellite images, have now been refuted. I'm so confused.
Engine data saying the plane flew for 4 hours was denied - WHAT?
Chinese satellite images weren't supposed to be released and don't show wreckage - HUH?
Police haven't searched the home of the pilot - ......
What all seemed legit, especially the Chinese satellite images, have now been refuted. I'm so confused.
Fjolle
Member
I can't see why WSJ would lie. I assume that they have researched and verified their stories.
tycoonheart
Member
As was said, all that seems to be the media jumping the gun.
Oh I don't know that WSJ lied, but someone either lied to them or didn't have the information first hand and they were lied to before passing it along to the WSJ. It shouldn't have been ambiguous, either you're getting data or you're not.
It's crazy how rumours can gain traction so quickly.. And turn into something so big.. Power of the media I suppose.
Let me be the first to say that my Donnie Darko theory is about as plausible as these. "Got involved with bad people"? This is one corny post.
I think we can all agree that a hijacking (whether by passengers or by the crew) is normally not what happens during a plane crash. I'll never dispute that. However, this isn't a normal plane crash scenario. In a normal plane crash, we either have distress calls or reliable enough transponder data to figure out where the plane was having problems so we can come up with a reasonable search area. This has neither. A 777 doesn't just sink into the water whole. It'll break up and everything buoyant (including dead bodies) will float away. Considering no floating debris has been found yet, it's likely that the plane didn't crash in the water in the areas we've been looking.
Hijacking/rogue pilots isn't just the first thought that came into my head. However, I think it's most fitting of the evidence at hand. If your argument is that this is a typical plane crash, how come there was no mayday call (like Japan Air 123)? How come there's no transponder/ACARS data after a certain point (like Air France 447)? How come they never checked in with Vietnamese ATC? If a plane was in bad enough condition to have communications and transponders shut off due to plane failure, it would have crashed soon after and there should be plenty of debris. I think saying this is just a typical plane crash requires far more stretching than anything else. The facts as they stand right now don't point in that direction unless the floating debris just has not been found yet (which I find hard to believe considering the amount of eyes in the area).
Hijacking a plane in a way that allows it to completely disappear without leaving any traces (no mayday, transponder off, no acars, no confirmed visual or primary radar sightings) requires a level of sophistication that no one on the plane the pilots aside is likely to possess. Multiple intelligence agencies have gone through the flight manifest and the passport issues aside have apparently not flagged anyone as suspicious, including the pilots. Sophistication is usually accompanied with a clear motive and plan, both of which also seems to be lacking here. It seems far more likely that they are either not searching in the right area or that they've been extremely unlucky with the debris spread or the search has not been systematic and competent.
Nope. Not even the other pilot, if only one goes rogue, as seen in the ethiopian flight that was hijacked by a single pilot when the other went to the bathroom.
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
Bombardier is installing cameras on the exterior of planes to monitor it. Why not have one for the interior?
It's a perfectly fine idea for normal operations (technically, anyway...pilots likely won't go for it) but it wouldn't have made a difference in this case.
Edit
Also, streaming video data will not be transmitted as long as data rates remain where they are, especially for satellite. Something like that would cost an airline hundreds and hundreds of millions to stream video over satellite, and GSM doesn't work a lot of the time.
The Main Event
Member
What a major clusterfuck.
And this is exactly why people need to stop asking for information so quickly. It takes time to verify claims before spouting out of the mouth.
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked
- Locked