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 Kanluwen wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Glaiceana wrote:
To be honest I'm not sure the passport thing is going to be related, they were stolen a long time ago, and plus passport forgery, stealing, and dealing over in that area of the world is pretty common, so a lot of people probably have stolen/forged/altered passports anyway.

I'm pretty sure that Austria isn't really a hotbed of stolen passports.

They were stolen in Thailand. At least one of them last August.

That makes more sense then.

The bit I had read earlier was suggesting that the owner of one of the passports had it stolen in Austria and they were in an Austrian airport when the plane went down.

I saw on the news that one was an Austrian passport and the other was Italian.

 Sturmtruppen wrote:

Relapse wrote:
At least there is some small measure of celebration, as these tweets from someone that missed that flight show.

http://twitchy.com/2014/03/08/thank-you-god-amazing-tweets-tell-story-of-missed-flight-mh370-to-beijing/

Well it didn't even occur to me to get on that plane, so God must be telling me I'm Jesus.

I was looking at the fact that at least not everyone had to deal with the loss of a loved one, but if you want to go off on an anti religious rant go right to it, the floor is yours.


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 SilverMK2 wrote:

the ancient wrote:
Damn dodgy asian maintenance probably. Nearly another story for the Dragons Triangle

I've flown MA a few times and they have always had really good service and well maintained (at least in terms of the cabins anyway ) aircraft.

I thought that area over there was pretty high tech when it came to things like this and what you post reiforces that idea.

Think the stolen passport thing is a red herring. There's probably a reasonable probability of someone travelling under dodgy documentation on any flight.

That said, the signs (no distress signal, plane just vanished) do kind of suggest foul play.

 Seaward wrote:

 -Shrike- wrote:
feth me. They don't have GPS on something the size of a 777?
Anyway, really sorry to hear this; my thoughts go out to all those affected.

Of course they do. A GPS would tell the drivers where they are, but wouldn't be much good for people looking for wreckage.

What you're asking 'bout is a transponder, which the plane also certainly had. They'd more likely than not have a general fix of where they last were while still squawking. They also had radar contact with it, from what I understand. The fact that there was some initial uncertainty about the plane's fate suggests that either they didn't squawk 7700 before going down (or call in a mayday for that matter), or else nobody noticed it, which is pretty unlikely.

The problem though is that that area of the ocean is notoriously littered with very deep ocean trenches, which can severely impair the range of the transponder.
So while they may know the rough area where the plane was before radar contact was lost, if it's gone down too deep, then the transponder ping may be reduced to only a couple hundred yards range of the ocean surface.

Note that it took them 2 years to find the main wreckage of that Air France plane that went down off of Brazil.

Relapse wrote:

 Sturmtruppen wrote:

Relapse wrote:
At least there is some small measure of celebration, as these tweets from someone that missed that flight show.

http://twitchy.com/2014/03/08/thank-you-god-amazing-tweets-tell-story-of-missed-flight-mh370-to-beijing/

Well it didn't even occur to me to get on that plane, so God must be telling me I'm Jesus.

I was looking at the fact that at least not everyone had to deal with the loss of a loved one, but if you want to go off on an anti religious rant go right to it, the floor is yours.

You know people will be idiots. It's their God-given right. Ignore the bridge-dweller.

Experiment 626 wrote:
The problem though is that that area of the ocean is notoriously littered with very deep ocean trenches, which can severely impair the range of the transponder.
So while they may know the rough area where the plane was before radar contact was lost, if it's gone down too deep, then the transponder ping may be reduced to only a couple hundred yards range of the ocean surface.

Note that it took them 2 years to find the main wreckage of that Air France plane that went down off of Brazil.

I meant prior to the crash, they'd have a good idea of where the plane last was. Post-crash, no, the chance that the IFF system or whatever else would still be active and giving them something to home in on is...low.

If it was terrorism someone would have made a claim by now.

Cabin asphyxia or a catastrophic failure like a fuel tank exploding are the two most likely causes. A more unlikely possibility is suicidal actions by a flight crew member acting alone.

The facts will only come out if they find the flight recorder I should think.

I think hypoxia's unlikely.

I'm leaning toward terrorism.
Hypoxia is extremely unlikely, If the engines were turning, the aircraft had air (Aircraft get their breathing air from the front of the engine, then cool it down so it's breathable).
If they lost their engines, then they'd have captions and horns going off all over the cockpit, and would have had time to make distress calls.

 marv335 wrote:
I'm leaning toward terrorism.
Hypoxia is extremely unlikely, If the engines were turning, the aircraft had air (Aircraft get their breathing air from the front of the engine, then cool it down so it's breathable).
If they lost their engines, then they'd have captions and horns going off all over the cockpit, and would have had time to make distress calls.

Air at that altitude doesn't provide anywhere near enough oxygen by volume to sustain consciousness. It's why commercial airliner cabins are pressurized, and why warrior-gods of the sky wear oxygen masks. It's also why they always warn you about how to use the little yellow oxygen masks in the event of loss of cabin pressure.

Hypoxia's a very real risk - a certainty, really - if the cabin or cockpit gets depressurized and the aircraft stays at altitude. I just think it's unlikely in this case because they were almost certainly on autopilot, and we'd be looking at a scenario where there was enough depressurization going on to induce hypoxia, not enough to trigger depressurization alarms, neither pilot noticed the effects prior to loss of consciousness, and at least one lost consciousness in such a way as to get the aircraft off autopilot and into a dive.

 marv335 wrote:
Hypoxia is extremely unlikely, If the engines were turning, the aircraft had air (Aircraft get their breathing air from the front of the engine, then cool it down so it's breathable).

Unless the pressurization system broke, or there was a big enough hole that it couldn't keep up with the leaks. There have been accidents before where the pressurization failed, the pilots for some reason weren't able to use their backup oxygen (or didn't realize they had a problem in time), and the plane just flew along on autopilot until it ran out of fuel and crashed. This seems a bit less likely in this case since they crashed short of their destination, but in theory the pilots could have stayed conscious long enough to shut off the autopilot and start a descent to a safe altitude, but not long enough to pull out of the dive.


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 Seaward wrote:
I just think it's unlikely in this case because they were almost certainly on autopilot, and we'd be looking at a scenario where there was enough depressurization going on to induce hypoxia, not enough to trigger depressurization alarms, neither pilot noticed the effects prior to loss of consciousness, and at least one lost consciousness in such a way as to get the aircraft off autopilot and into a dive.

It's possible though. Any idea how the autopilot on a 777 works? How quickly/easily can it be shut off if the pilots try to take control manually? I can imagine someone reacting to the alarm by starting an immediate descent, and if they failed to get their masks on fast enough that would leave the plane off autopilot and pointed down in a fatal dive.

 Peregrine wrote:
It's possible though. Any idea how the autopilot on a 777 works? How quickly/easily can it be shut off if the pilots try to take control manually? I can imagine someone reacting to the alarm by starting an immediate descent, and if they failed to get their masks on fast enough that would leave the plane off autopilot and pointed down in a fatal dive.

It's certainly possible, in that it's happened before, it just seems unlikely given the other particulars of this one. I'm not familiar with the 777's autopilot system, but I'd be shocked if it wasn't something you could override immediately. But if they were aware of the issue, there's no reason that wouldn't be an immediate mayday, or at the very least a call to en route ATC informing them that they were descending. Unconsciousness due to hypoxia wouldn't be instant, even with complete depressurization. It takes a while to progress to unconsciousness, and there are distinct symptoms all along the way.

 Seaward wrote:
It takes a while to progress to unconsciousness, and there are distinct symptoms all along the way.

True, but those symptoms include getting stupid, fumbling with tasks that are normally easy, etc. And there's pretty clear evidence from past accidents that hypoxia can disable a crew before they can make any mayday calls (or even take any appropriate action to fix the problem). So who knows, maybe someone remained conscious long enough to get the plane into a dive, but couldn't get the radio on the right frequency before it was too late.

 Peregrine wrote:
And there's pretty clear evidence from past accidents that hypoxia can disable a crew before they can make any mayday calls (or even take any appropriate action to fix the problem).

It can, yes. I'm unaware of any civilian examples that fit the profile our limited information in this case is providing, though. The sudden radar loss doesn't seem to indicate hypoxia, to me.

Hypoxia / gas poisoning. I've read several reports of fumes getting into the air system and causing problems. IDK if those stories are like WiFi allergy or something real.

Maybe they are all one an,island with a mysterious hatch

 Seaward wrote:

 marv335 wrote:
I'm leaning toward terrorism.
Hypoxia is extremely unlikely, If the engines were turning, the aircraft had air (Aircraft get their breathing air from the front of the engine, then cool it down so it's breathable).
If they lost their engines, then they'd have captions and horns going off all over the cockpit, and would have had time to make distress calls.

Air at that altitude doesn't provide anywhere near enough oxygen by volume to sustain consciousness. It's why commercial airliner cabins are pressurized, and why warrior-gods of the sky wear oxygen masks. It's also why they always warn you about how to use the little yellow oxygen masks in the event of loss of cabin pressure.

Yes it does, how do you think the cabin is pressurised?
With air from outside the aircraft, delivered via the bleed air system (usually stage 4 of the compressor)
Fighter aircraft get their air he same way, and are also pressurised. The oxygen mask delivers normal cabin air, although it will mix in oxygen as the cabin altitude increases, and can be manually switched to 100%.
Fumes in the cabin are rare, and are usually due to improper component handling during a cold air unit change, or an engine problem.

 marv335 wrote:
Yes it does, how do you think the cabin is pressurised?
With air from outside the aircraft, delivered via the bleed air system (usually stage 4 of the compressor)
Fighter aircraft get their air he same way, and are also pressurised. The oxygen mask delivers normal cabin air, although it will mix in oxygen as the cabin altitude increases, and can be manually switched to 100%.
Fumes in the cabin are rare, and are usually due to improper component handling during a cold air unit change, or an engine problem.

I think you missed the point. I was disagreeing with the notion that as long as the engines are turning, hypoxia's impossible. Absolutely not the case. Air is indeed pressurized by the engine(s), but if there's, for example, a leak in the cabin, full pressurization - or even pressurization at all - can become impossible, which will lead to there not being enough oxygen by volume to sustain human consciousness. Or life, for that matter. Hypoxia can and does occur in both commercial and military aviation. A Greek airliner went down a while ago due to crew hypoxia, and we've lost at least one F-22 that way, if memory serves, not to mention several less expensive platforms.

And fighters are pressurized, to an extent, though not nearly as much as airliners. It's why oxygen masks are necessary.

Read now that they think it turned back prior to disappearing.

Very odd that there was no mayday communication at all, and makes you think it's terrorist involvement. Although, like Killkrazy says in that case why has no-one yet claimed responsibility?

What other kind of critical failure could have occurred that meant there were no comms? Possible that it was shot down accidentally?

Cthulu happened, that's what.

The new line of enquiry is the two people flying on stolen passports.

(As an aside, what is the point of passports and Interpol listing stolen ones if airport security don't bother to check? </rhetorical> ++ Security Theatre++)

However we must suppose if they destroyed the aircraft they also got the means on board -- not difficult perhaps given the slack security.

And yet, no claim by any group...

 Pacific wrote:
Read now that they think it turned back prior to disappearing.

Very odd that there was no mayday communication at all, and makes you think it's terrorist involvement. Although, like Killkrazy says in that case why has no-one yet claimed responsibility?

What other kind of critical failure could have occurred that meant there were no comms? Possible that it was shot down accidentally?

Pilot suicide is probably more likely than a terrorist act... If there one thing all terrorist acts have in common, it's that they tend towards the dramatic and want a captive audience to witness their acts and know their cause.
Downing a random plane in the middle of nowhere kinda flies in the face of that common MO.

Experiment 626 wrote:

Pilot suicide is probably more likely than a terrorist act... If there one thing all terrorist acts have in common, it's that they tend towards the dramatic and want a captive audience to witness their acts and know their cause.
Downing a random plane in the middle of nowhere kinda flies in the face of that common MO.

It may look like the middle of nowhere to us, but that part of the world has issues with terrorism, too. Westerners don't hear about it as often, because it usually doesn't involve dead westerners (the Mumbai attack being a noticeable exception) but there are some very bad dudes running around that part of the planet. This particular plane on this particular flight might be some terrorist's idea of a high-profile target.

But I do agree with you that this doesn't look like terrorism, simply because nobody has claimed responsibility. You're right that terrorists want people to "witness their acts and know their cause" and if you blow up a plane and don't bother telling anyone about it, how do they know your cause? So yeah, I agree completely that this wasn't terrorism.

A general question to the thread... wasn't the 777 the plane that took forever to get delivered to the airline companies? Weren't there serious production problems that delayed it? Was this the type of plane that had serious mechanical issues a few months back? I'm wondering if something mechanical went wrong here and caused this crash.

Terrorists do not always claim responsibility, nor do claims always get reported.

Experiment 626 wrote:
Pilot suicide is probably more likely than a terrorist act...

Pilot suicide makes no sense at all. Planes like that have two pilots, and I can't imagine the suicidal pilot going with a plan that requires murdering their co-pilot to take control of the plane, taking another 200+ people with them, and not even bothering to leave an obvious suicide note. If you're just going to kill yourself and not make a big dramatic statement with it then there are much easier ways to die.

squidhills wrote:
It may look like the middle of nowhere to us, but that part of the world has issues with terrorism, too.

Not the region, the exact crash site. It doesn't make much sense to crash or blow up a plane in the middle of the ocean where nobody can see it, and then not even bother to claim responsibility. There's a reason why the 9/11 hijackers attacked major cities instead of just crashing in a random corn field in the middle of nowhere.

A general question to the thread... wasn't the 777 the plane that took forever to get delivered to the airline companies? Weren't there serious production problems that delayed it? Was this the type of plane that had serious mechanical issues a few months back? I'm wondering if something mechanical went wrong here and caused this crash.

Every modern plane has "serious production problems", that's why everything is thoroughly tested before it's approved for commercial use. And if there's a known issue that could cause a crash then all of them are grounded until the problem is resolved. Obviously mechanical issues are going to be considered, but there's not much reason to suspect mechanical issues with this plane compared to any other type. In fact since the 777 is so new it's probably a bit less likely since there are fewer flying hours for poor design and/or maintenance to allow something to fail.

gak, this is terrible. Our thoughts go out to those poor people and their family's/loved one's.

Are there any updates?

 master of ordinance wrote:
gak, this is terrible. Our thoughts go out to those poor people and their family's/loved one's.

Are there any updates?

http://www.smh.com.au/world/door-and-tail-fragment-of-malaysia-flight-mh370-possibly-found-vietnam-20140310-hvgs6.html

 Peregrine wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
Pilot suicide is probably more likely than a terrorist act...

Pilot suicide makes no sense at all. Planes like that have two pilots, and I can't imagine the suicidal pilot going with a plan that requires murdering their co-pilot to take control of the plane, taking another 200+ people with them, and not even bothering to leave an obvious suicide note. If you're just going to kill yourself and not make a big dramatic statement with it then there are much easier ways to die.

A suicidal pilot doesn't need to kill or incapacitate their co-pilot. If you put a plane into a sudden steep enough dive for example it becomes an unrecoverable position.
Granted pilot suicide has only happened a few times in recent history, but there are still a couple of documented cases where pilots purposely crashed their jets and killed everyone else on board in the process.

The main point is that while unlikely, pilot suicide is still more probable in this case than an act of terrorism. (and if turns out to be terrorism, then it's likely got to be the world's worst ever attempt at it...)

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
Pilot suicide is probably more likely than a terrorist act...

Pilot suicide makes no sense at all. Planes like that have two pilots, and I can't imagine the suicidal pilot going with a plan that requires murdering their co-pilot to take control of the plane, taking another 200+ people with them, and not even bothering to leave an obvious suicide note. If you're just going to kill yourself and not make a big dramatic statement with it then there are much easier ways to die.

A suicidal pilot doesn't need to kill or incapacitate their co-pilot. If you put a plane into a sudden steep enough dive for example it becomes an unrecoverable position.
Granted pilot suicide has only happened a few times in recent history, but there are still a couple of documented cases where pilots purposely crashed their jets and killed everyone else on board in the process.

The main point is that while unlikely, pilot suicide is still more probable in this case than an act of terrorism. (and if turns out to be terrorism, then it's likely got to be the world's worst ever attempt at it...)

How does that account for the total loss of contact though? Even in an irreversible dive, there would have been enough time for the copilot to send out a mayday.

I've been reading that multiple agencies are starting to think an in air disintegration is the most likely explanation right now, and those require bombs.

If you were looking at a blank slate, statistically you'd probably be right, but it's not a blank slate. We have certain bits of info, so it moves the scale around, and with what we know, suicide is hardly the most likely option.