Missing Airliner

My FB post I thought worth posing here as well.

Alright...been watching both CNN and FAUX News. Why hasn't anybody publicly presented the option that this airplane may have been stolen and is currently parked under cover in some "...stan" to the east or something?

What did they do with the passengers and crew?

What happens when this aircraft/(hacked)transponder "re-appears" over San Francisco or Chicago or New York or...?

Lottsa room for more than a couple guys with stolen passports.

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I just thought it a little odd that I haven't heard the talking heads pondering this yet.

Those are plausible scenarios. I don't watch those hack news agency's, the major news is bad enough. Lets pray for the passengers are safe one way or another and that plane don't reappear over some U.S. city. I doubt the U.S. will allow a plane with that transponder or any unidentified plane within 20 miles of a coast without sending either Navy or Air Force fighters to intercept and bring it down. So in that regard, we safe from that sort of an attack.

Worst case is the plane is in some "'stan" country and the American passengers are either killed outright or locked away and tortured for Allah. Until debris or the plane is found, the world will never know what happened.

At this point, all we can do is pray for the families.

At this point, all we can do is pray for the families

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Indeed Sir

Hmmmmm ....

Well, the US news industry today (on networks, cable, web, and print) is HIGHLY edited through "world view" templates, by editors that are fairly high up in the food chain. Things that fall outside that template are often ignored.

It's very hard to find solid reporting, and it's been that way for decades.

Greg

GregGleason said:

Hmmmmm ....

Well, the US news industry today (on networks, cable, web, and print) is HIGHLY edited through "world view" templates, by editors that are fairly high up in the food chain. Things that fall outside that template are often ignored.

It's very hard to find solid reporting, and it's been that way for decades.

Greg

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Agreed

I think one of two Scenarios happened.

1. It's on "The Island"....
2. It was smashed out of the Sky by a Meteor.

Since "The Island" only exists on LOST, I'm leaning toward Meteor, especially in light of the recent close Passes of Asteroids/Space Rocks.

We don't know what happened to it, so at this point you can't rule anything out. But I think it is unlikely you could hijack a 777 without the pilots communicating the problem. And I also think it is unlikely you could steal the plane and fly it undetected to some secret place without being detected by radars along the route. And it would be difficult to have a secret base where you would be able to land a plane that size, refuel it, and take off again.

I think it is a lot more likely the plane experienced a sudden and catastrophic failure during an otherwise normal cruise.

The airplane needs a 6,000 runway to land. Any airfield of that size is easily visible from space.
The airplane has a 212' wingspan and is 209' long. It's pretty hard to hide.
It had enough fuel for a 7 hour flight. At Mach 0.84 the bingo range is ~4400 miles.
There are a limited number of airfields where this size plane can land. All are known and most certainly checked.

Once you are ~250 miles from a commercial aviation tracking radar facility, it is not possible to track a 777 aircraft because it is below the horizon and commercial radar is line-of-sight. The range can be considerably less if the altitude is lower than 41,000' or due to terrain or weather. If you look at any commercial flight tracking services for the area between Malaysia and Vietnam you will see that tracking is lost above 5 degrees North out of Kuala Lumpur. Sultan Mahmud Airport at 5.38N, 103.10E is the closest airport that a 777 could turn around to and land at after an emergency over the Gulf of Thailand where the plane was lost. It is possible the airport has a military radar that could provide information which is not public at present.

Unfortunately it appears they went down in the Gulf of Thailand midway between Malaysia and Vietnam. This is an out of radar contact area where a small bomb that depressurizes and disables the aircraft could be detonated without notice and bring the aircraft down largely intact until it hits the water. Little debris would be left in the vicinity to pinpoint the point of impact. A case of crew suicide also needs to be considered.

There is a vanishingly small probability that a 777 could be hijacked and successfully land anywhere on the globe without being observed. The reality is that it crashed at sea unobserved.

Bob

bobkrech said:

The airplane needs a 6,000 runway to land. Any airfield of that size is easily visible from space.
The airplane has a 212' wingspan and is 209' long. It's pretty hard to hide.
It had enough fuel for a 7 hour flight. At Mach 0.84 the bingo range is ~4400 miles.
There are a limited number of airfields where this size plane can land. All are known and most certainly checked.

Once you are ~250 miles from a commercial aviation tracking radar facility, it is not possible to track a 777 aircraft because it is below the horizon and commercial radar is line-of-sight. The range can be considerably less if the altitude is lower than 41,000' or due to terrain or weather. If you look at any commercial flight tracking services for the area between Malaysia and Vietnam you will see that tracking is lost above 5 degrees North out of Kuala Lumpur. Sultan Mahmud Airport at 5.38N, 103.10E is the closest airport that a 777 could turn around to and land at after an emergency over the Gulf of Thailand where the plane was lost. It is possible the airport has a military radar that could provide information which is not public at present.

Unfortunately it appears they went down in the Gulf of Thailand midway between Malaysia and Vietnam. This is an out of radar contact area where a small bomb that depressurizes and disables the aircraft could be detonated without notice and bring the aircraft down largely intact until it hits the water. Little debris would be left in the vicinity to pinpoint the point of impact. A case of crew suicide also needs to be considered.

There is a vanishingly small probability that a 777 could be hijacked and successfully land anywhere on the globe without being observed. The reality is that it crashed at sea unobserved.

Bob

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How do you really know what facilities are available for use in clandestine countries? Sure the US Military knows but a pilot would have had 5 hours of darkness to reroute, land and hide the plane. Of course I'm assuming our accurate satellite observations come during daylight, which may no longer be true if a new technology has been deployed in the last five years. So to verify you would have to do on-site inspection and I don't think NK is just going to let you show up and unlock a hanger.

dixontj93060 said:

How do you really know what facilities are available for use in clandestine countries? Sure the US Military knows but a pilot would have had 5 hours of darkness to reroute, land and hide the plane. Of course I'm assuming our accurate satellite observations come during daylight, which may no longer be true if a new technology has been deployed in the last five years. So to verify you would have to do on-site inspection and I don't think NK is just going to let you show up and unlock a hanger.

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It is no problem to identify a 777 on the ground at night with satellites (IR, SAR), however, this assumes a satellite is in position. I'm with Bob and very much doubt that this is a case of a plane being abducted for later use. Non state groups simply don't have the infrastructure for this kind of operations. On the other hand, all nation states within range of the 777 have nothing to gain by provoking China by abducting such a large number if its citizens. This includes North Korea. They might behave crazy at times, but they certainly know not to overstretch the patience of their only relevant "ally". In addition, I expect the North Korean airspace to be under 24/7 surveilance by South Korean and U.S forces (AWACS etc.).


Reinhard

TopRamen said:

I think one of two Scenarios happened.

1. It's on "The Island"....
2. It was smashed out of the Sky by a Meteor.

Since "The Island" only exists on LOST, I'm leaning toward Meteor, especially in light of the recent close Passes of Asteroids/Space Rocks.

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I forgot to mention that a few days ago I saw a Daytime Meteor.

I've been thinking a bomb of some sort was detonated on this plane. But it seems to me if your group was the one to accomplish this wouldn't you want to brag about it? Why else would you do it? They say the plane was turning around, why didn't the plane send some sort of message about this out of ordinary event? Maybe it was a failed hi jacking.

3. Aliens!

TopRamen said:

I think one of two Scenarios happened.

1. It's on "The Island"....
2. It was smashed out of the Sky by a Meteor.

Since "The Island" only exists on LOST, I'm leaning toward Meteor, especially in light of the recent close Passes of Asteroids/Space Rocks.

Click to expand...

It had been reported that this plane had a variety of communications devices on board including some sort of automated reporting back to the airline. I highly doubt someone was smart enough to disable every single means of communication from that plane to steal it.

What would one do with a stolen airliner? It would be just as stupid as stealing a $100 million painting. A stolen $100 million painting can''t be sold on the open market. Similarly, a stolen airliner can't be sold on the open market either. If someone wanted a airliner to keep for their private use eventually someone would figure out that the airplane was one that went missing. I can't imagine there is enough value in scrapping a plane to be worth hijacking one.

Tin foil hats all around!

belfert said:

What would one do with a stolen airliner? It would be just as stupid as stealing a $100 million painting. A stolen $100 million painting can''t be sold on the open market. Similarly, a stolen airliner can't be sold on the open market either. If someone wanted a airliner to keep for their private use eventually someone would figure out that the airplane was one that went missing. I can't imagine there is enough value in scrapping a plane to be worth hijacking one.

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Use as a WMD.

One plausible scenario I heard in the comments was:
-2 passengers on fake passports (confirmed)
-tickets for said passengers paid for by an Iranian (confirmed)
-tickets were booked to Europe (can't remember exact countries)
-fake passengers checked bags w/bombs, knowing they wouldn't be examined at the connecting airports due to their fake identites
-fake passengers expected to detonate bombs over Europe
-fake passengers bombs went off prematurely

It's a stretch, but it shows a plan, and also explains why no one is claiming responsibility.

dixontj93060 said:

Use as a WMD.

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Or demand ransom, '90s style.
But really, it's pretty certainly down. Which is definitely bad news.

" Man I knew we should have put more then 5 dollars worth of gas in it " .

Honestly , there are two plausible situations and that is all .

1. The plane splash landed . How it happened , we will never know .
2. It was hi-jacked and landed safely somewhere else . Will the U.S. government ever tell the truth , no .

Did number 2 happen ?

Yes , but it wasn't a hi-jacking . Thoughts are with the family's of the crew and passengers .

Eric

Other incidents:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_902

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007

But I believe the possibility of the above scenarios happening on this flight are quite remote.

Unless the flight data recorders can be found, it is unlikely that we will have a clue what happened.

Until then, it's all just idle speculation.

Greg

Perhaps it slipped into a Wormhole. They are out there somewhere, so maybe the conditions were just right for one to momentarily occur here at Earth?

Air France flight 447 that disappeared mysteriously over the Atlantic Ocean in 2009

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447

Bad chain of events, with iced-up pitot tubes contributing to an autopilot problem and the pilots allowing the plane to get into a high altitude stall. THey were so busy trying to get under control they did not have time to radio a distress signal.


In 1996, there was this one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800

TWA flight 800 broke up 12 minutes after take-off, crashing into the Atlantic. There was a fireball seen that many on the ground thought was a missile going up. For months it was thought that it either had a bomb or a missile shot it down (some of the missile theory hysteria had an effect on our hobby, we'll never know for sure how much). It later turned out to be that a center fuel tank, which was empty but had fuel vapor in it, exploded (likely sparked by old poor wiring), causing the front of the fuselage to break off just ahead of the wing. The "missile" some eyewitnesses saw flying upwards turned out to be the noseless 747 itself, climbing upwards, trailing flame, then arcing over and diving towards the ocean before finally breaking up on the way down.

Ultimately, it took the recovery of the actual wreckage, plus black box info, to determine what the heck really happened in both cases. And it was almost two years before the Air France black boxes were finally found (IIRC in very deep water. Floating wreckage was actually found on the ocean surface by the 5th day).

Now, I'm not saying that either of the above two are what happened. The use of stolen passports is a wildcard, could be a plot and related, or could be a coincidence of criminal activity having nothing to do with the plane. But I wanted to balance out the theories of the plane being shot down, and some of the more out-there ideas. Both of these were mysterious, and TWA 800 was "assumed" to be a terrorist bomb (or possibly missile), until enough solid info became available to show what really happened.

- George Gassaway

1. First of all, always believe the most looney tunes paranoid conspiracy theory possible.

In the area where it is most likely that the plane went down
how deep is the water,,,,,,,
The deeper it is ,,,,,,,
The longer it will be before there is an answer............

Teddy

JStarStar said:

1. First of all, always believe the most looney tunes paranoid conspiracy theory possible.

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Well, we know that if they never find it, that it was either the Wormhole or the Aliens.

georgegassaway said:

Air France flight 447 that disappeared mysteriously over the Atlantic Ocean in 2009

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447

Bad chain of events, with iced-up pitot tubes contributing to an autopilot problem and the pilots allowing the plane to get into a high altitude stall. THey were so busy trying to get under control they did not have time to radio a distress signal. - George Gassaway

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Eep, I never got around to read the reports on that. Pitot icing is nasty business.

But wow, at 02:11:47: "We've totally lost control of the plane. We don't understand at all... We've tried everything."
You thought you tried everything, but the damn other pilot didn't push the stick forward! >_<

I was thinking as I started reading about the stall that maybe they were stalled too deeply and going to slow to have control authority, but no, Bonin was pulling back riding all the way down to the ocean

JStarStar said:

1. First of all, always believe the most looney tunes paranoid conspiracy theory possible.

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No.

This apparent tragedy is too serious to joke about.

Or for the tinfoil hat wearing loonies to jump in.

- George Gassaway

georgegassaway said:

No.

This apparent tragedy is too serious to joke about.

Or for the tinfoil hat wearing loonies to jump in.

- George Gassaway

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Oh no? You must not have listened to Coast to Coast AM tonight.

Perhaps North Korea spirited it away and are hiding it underground . . . or perhaps it is most likely at the bottom of the ocean. I'm not watching news channels and am damn glad for it, as I can't stand their stupidity in things like this, for if we just wait, the outcome will become apparent without all the speculating.

dear conspiracy theorists:
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