Interesting New Theory On The Missing Plane, Very Plausible

I've been leaning towards a scenario such as this from the beginning as have a few others around here. Without wreckage though we may never know what really happened. It is certainly more plausible then a lot of the other theories flying around.

I'm reminded of the golfer Payne Stewart and his private jet whose plane depressurized, killing all aboard. The plane flew on autopilot until it ran out of fuel. However that was spotted on radar and military assets were scrambled to determine what was going on. These guys may not have had a chance to communicate, especially if their radio was knocked out by an onboard fire.

I still think that it was hijacked... They said that the phones are still ringing when they are being called...

blackbrandt said:

I still think that it was hijacked... They said that the phones are still ringing when they are being called...

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...source?

And yeah, massive electrical issues were always one of the more plausible culprits. Adding fire makes things fit even better.

blackbrandt said:

I still think that it was hijacked... They said that the phones are still ringing when they are being called...

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Attach your phone to a buoy with plenty of battery and put it in the middle of the ocean then travel back to land and attempt to call the phone. The same thing will happen the ringing is your phone trying to connect to the receiving phone. Since the phone has no reception it will continue to ring and ring.

The only time it goes to voicemail is if your phone connects with the other phone and no one answers.

No, as in it is going to voicemail.

blackbrandt said:

No, as in it is going to voicemail.

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I haven't heard that. Please link the source report.

I have trouble believing the phones are still functioning. Aren't there ways to locate a functioning cell phone?

RocketGeekInFL said:

https://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/

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As I stated in the other thread, while the smoky fire option is possible, the captain was very experienced and well versed in flying. From what we know of him he took flying very serious, and if the hijack option is not on the table, it would be surprising that he made a rookie mistake of not donning an oxygen mask in a smoky fire. If you want to consider a pure accident, the Payne Stewart scenario makes more sense, but again I find it hard to believe that an experienced captain would ignore multiple pressurization alarms going off.

I know that if a problem arose, any seasoned pilot would head to the nearest airport capable of landing his plane, but I also assume he would declare an emergency and set the appropriate transponder code. There was no reason to go back to KUL (Kuala Lumpur International) where the flight originated from because it was 275-325nm from the reported turning point, and no reason to go to LGK (Langkawi International) as suggested in the Wired report which was also in the other side of Malaysia about 230-240nm from the reported turning point. TGG Sultan Mahmud Airport, located directly on the Gulf of Thailand with an 11,000' runway, was without doubt the closest airport and only 100-150 nm south where the airplane turned. In fact, the outward bound MH370 nearly flew over this airport on its way north. The reciprocal course to TGG would have placed MH370 on the ground in 15-22 minutes, and any other viable option would take at least twice as long. The reported visibility was good but moon had set within an hour of takeoff so there would be dark skies, but if the visibility was good, seeing Kuala Terengganu, a city of 300,000 on the coast 4 nm south of TGG from 50-100 miles out would not be difficult.

TGG is where an experienced 777 pilot would have headed, not LGK as Chris Goodfellow, the author of the Wired story, suggests. He shows his ignorance of where MH370 turned and where the closest airport was. When you look at the geography and the known track of MH370, Chris is literally out in left field without a glove, or an airport, with his theory. Based on geographic facts alone, his story is not credible or plausible.

Bob

Folks, if any cell phones from the flight were working, as in powered on and attached to a cellular network, it would be easy to do tower triangulation to narrow down their locations within a couple square miles. If such a cell phone was connected to EVEN ONE tower, you would be able to locate the phone to within a few miles distance, based on the operating range of the tower and the transmission power of the particular cell phone.

Try this experiment with your cell phone: Put it in a heavy duty industrial blender and switch it to puree for 10 minutes, simulating a violent crash. Take the shredded remains and dump them into the nearest body of water, simulating sinking to the bottom of the sea. Now call the cell phone number. For most people, you will hear it "ring" on the other end for a period of time based on your user settings and the defaults of your cell provider, then on most systems it will go to voice mail. My own phone is set to "ring" for about 20-25 seconds then go to voice mail, whether it is on and I ignore it, or if it is not connected to the network. I've tested this, and that's how it works for me, and it's how every phone I've had since 1995 has worked. Some systems allow "direct to voice mail" when the phone isn't on the network, but in my experience this doesn't tend to work predictably when phones are used internationally. The system expects you to be out there somewhere and spends some time searching.

Bottom line: don't let the ringing cell phones suggest the phones are on and intact, and connected to the network.

Marc

Well plenty of accidents have been aircraft flown into the ground by 'experienced pilots' - the Air France one lost in the Atlantic a few years ago comes to mind but there are plenty of others. Controlled decent into ground is a pretty common thing in the roll call of aircraft accidents. You could say most air crashes have experienced pilots on board, problem is they are often a contributing factor to an accident. I would bet on some kind of failure aggravated by pilot error or incapacitation. I am thinking of the Helios Airways accident a few years back. Left to its own devices its not improbable the aircraft could have wandered and flown on for some time - maybe with no autopilot engaged it might have flown in a haphazard way which would explain its turn back to the coast - might have been the plane just being blown about.

Years ago an RAF Harrier did just that after a serious malfunction, the pilot ejected safely but the aircraft flew on for ages and had to be shot down over the North Sea in the end. I only use that as an example that a crippled aircraft can be non-viable for crew but still fly on even without an auto pilot.

Cell phones - the ringing is generated by the cell system not the phone, likewise the switch to VM is executed by the cell operator so that seems to be not mysterious at all.

Whats more worrying I thnk is the misinformation thats been released - in fairness though this is often the case as people are often put in a position of feeling they should say something to the media, sometimes from fear, sometimes from a misplaced sense or bad jusdgement and sometimes they just want to be seen to be helpful etc - it all goes into a sort of 'fog' and only on sober reflection makes much sense and very often its just plain wrong - brain chatter vocalised. This sort of thing goes back to the Titanic and quite probably the White Ship disaster as well.

My heart goes out to those who have lost loved ones - they must be going through hell - theres not much worse than lack of closure in these sorts of cases.

I think this ignores the Emergency Beacons going off. They are very resilient to crash and should have alerted through satellites that a crash has occurred.

cwbullet said:

I think this ignores the Emergency Beacons going off. They are very resilient to crash and should have alerted through satellites that a crash has occurred.

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True...but only if they didn't sink.

FC

FastCargo said:

True...but only if they didn't sink.

FC

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That is true.

So it's probably in the water. It's going to be a long time before it's found, if ever.


......

If it is in the Southern Indian Ocean where they now suspect it to be, it is entirely possible it will never be found as the water is some of the deepest on Earth. What if there was a fire, that fire did knock out all the com's, as well as created a situation where the pilots and crew were knocked unconscious through a serious of events and the plane just flew and flew until it ran out of fuel. Similar to the Payne Stewart incident. I know it doesn't explain the sudden climb and then the drop, unless the pilot was hoping that the climb would put the plane at an elevation that would put out a fire in the engine well due to a lack of oxygen at that altitude. We may never know, and there will be no way of knowing unless the plane is found and the black (red/orange) boxes are recovered and presumably not destroyed from the water depth and time.

Completely wrong! Someone onboard entered the new course into the center console using the keypad and the direction change occurred BEFORE the last radio communication with air traffic control.

RocketGeekInFL said:

If it is in the Southern Indian Ocean where they now suspect it to be, it is entirely possible it will never be found as the water is some of the deepest on Earth. What if there was a fire, that fire did knock out all the com's, as well as created a situation where the pilots and crew were knocked unconscious through a serious of events and the plane just flew and flew until it ran out of fuel. Similar to the Payne Stewart incident. I know it doesn't explain the sudden climb and then the drop, unless the pilot was hoping that the climb would put the plane at an elevation that would put out a fire in the engine well due to a lack of oxygen at that altitude. We may never know, and there will be no way of knowing unless the plane is found and the black (red/orange) boxes are recovered and presumably not destroyed from the water depth and time.

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shreadvector said:

Completely wrong! Someone onboard entered the new course into the center console using the keypad and the direction change occurred BEFORE the last radio communication with air traffic control.

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I had not heard this. Is this confirmed? And how would they be able to tell what was entered in the computer on the plane?

Read the news.


The REAL news.

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

RocketGeekInFL said:

I had not heard this. Is this confirmed? And how would they be able to tell what was entered in the computer on the plane?

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Yeah. Wikipedia.... Sure...
"The REAL news..." :rofl:

It a nice theory, but it simply doesn't explain the actions that "got the plane to the Southern Indian Ocean".

1.) A fire takes time to develop and knock out the pilots. If there was a fire, the first action of an experienced pilot would be to put on his oxygen mask and that would have prevented him from passing out, therefore he could still fly the airplane. That did not happen.

2.) His second action would be to turn the aircraft around to go to the nearest airport, squawk 7700 – Emergency on his transponder, and get on the radio. That did not happen!

3.) As he cleared the Malaysia coast line he flew almost directly over Sultan Mahmud Airport (TGG), located directly on the Gulf of Thailand with an 11,000' runway. This was without doubt the closest airport and only 100-150 nm south where the airplane turned west. Doing a 180 to TGG would have put MH370 on the ground in 15-22 minutes. That did not happen.

4.) If the aircraft didn't make TGG, it would be in the Gulf of Thailand, Malaysia, or Indonesia or beyond, and there would be a radar track to indicate where it went. That did not happen.

I believe none of this happened. W

What has been reported is that:

5.) According to the recent new updates, the planes automatic reporting system at 1:07 indicated that the next programed autopilot command was to make a left hand turn which was a deviation from the preplanned flight path.

6.) At 1:19 the pilot signed off to Malaysia ATC with the words "All Right. Good Night."

These actions show that the turn to the west was preplanned, and not an emergency.

The only reason why the search is being conducted in the Southern Indian Ocean is that we are made to believe the 8:11 automated data system ping occurred on a circle that contained the reported east side arcs. For this to have happened, the plane would have had to be turned south sometime after 1:45 or later otherwise the plane would have continues on a westerly path towards the Maldives and Africa......

Nothing is mentioned about the rest of the circle. Why not? To reach the western arc, the aircraft would only have had to fly over international waters without radar coverage to make landfall in Iran, the Arabian peninsula, or the east coast of Africa which is a far more sinister thought than going down over the ocean............

FWIW

Bob

blackbrandt said:

Yeah. Wikipedia.... Sure...
"The REAL news..." :rofl:

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No. Wikipedia has an article that explains the system that is central to the real new released last night. Read the news, then use Wikipedia to learn about the system mentioned in the news.

Or keep posting technically insane scenarios and make yourself look very uneducated and gullible.

bobkrech said:

Nothing is mentioned about the rest of the circle. Why not? To reach the western arc, the aircraft would only have had to fly over international waters without radar coverage to make landfall in Iran, the Arabian peninsula, or the east coast of Africa which is a far more sinister thought than going down over the ocean............

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The reason they have given for dismissing the Western arc is that the plane did not have enough fuel to reach those distances in that timeframe.

shreadvector said:

No. Wikipedia has an article that explains the system that is central to the real new released last night. Read the news, then use Wikipedia to learn about the system mentioned in the news.

Or keep posting technically insane scenarios and make yourself look very uneducated and gullible.

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Fred, you might want to provide a link to whatever news sources you are reading. I am reading quite a few stories and the only person I have seen talking about this so far is you. I'd like to read the story.

dixontj93060 said:

The reason they have given for dismissing the Western arc is that the plane did not have enough fuel to reach those distances in that timeframe.

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What I believe has been validated publicly release fact is that MH370 took off at 12.41 AM and the last ACARS ping occurred at 8:11 AM. That's a 7.5 hour time interval. The nominal cruising speed for a 777 is 540 knots according to Boeing 777-200ER technical data published on the Boeing website. The nominal distance covered would be 4050 nm at that speed. Take off 300 nm for take-off and landing and you have a possible range of about 3750 nm. That's more than enough range to get to the western arc under nominal flight conditions, so it is indeed possible to get to Iran, the Arabian peninsula, or the east coast of Africa within the known time constraints under the publicly released information.

What has not been made public is a credible report on the quantity of fuel loaded on to the airplane or the time they started their engines before it pulled out of the gate so unless you have that information you can not say for certain what the ultimate range of the AC was. I also have not seen any winds aloft data for the flight either, or any locational data derived from the intermediate, supposedly hourly, ACARS pings.

I've investigated a number of laboratory incidents. In any objective incident investigation you eliminate a hypothesis only after it is not supported by data or fact. The only way the western arc can be legitimately eliminated is if there is more ACARS information, fuel loading, weather or other known facts that have not been made public.

Bob

bobkrech said:

What I believe has been validated publicly release fact is that MH370 took off at 12.41 AM and the last ACARS ping occurred at 8:11 AM. That's a 7.5 hour time interval. The nominal cruising speed for a 777 is 540 knots according to Boeing 777-200ER technical data published on the Boeing website. The nominal distance covered would be 4050 nm at that speed. Take off 300 nm for take-off and landing and you have a possible range of about 3750 nm. That's more than enough range to get to the western arc under nominal flight conditions, so it is indeed possible to get to Iran, the Arabian peninsula, or the east coast of Africa within the known time constraints under the publicly released information.

What has not been made public is a credible report on the quantity of fuel loaded on to the airplane or the time they started their engines before it pulled out of the gate so unless you have that information you can not say for certain what the ultimate range of the AC was. I also have not seen any winds aloft data for the flight either, or any locational data derived from the intermediate, supposedly hourly, ACARS pings.

I've investigated a number of laboratory incidents. In any objective incident investigation you eliminate a hypothesis only after it is not supported by data or fact. The only way the western arc can be legitimately eliminated is if there is more ACARS information, fuel loading, weather or other known facts that have not been made public.

Bob

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I believe they are first subtracting the location/time/speed transversed before the last military satellite observation in the Macca Strait / Adaman Sea location and then looking at minimum / maximum ranges from there. The cut off on the northern and southern segments is set to the range of the maximum distance the plane could fly at maximum speed, so, more correctly, not enough fuel to get to the western half of the ping arc after being on the eastern arc at 8:11am. As you can see from the diagram below the extent of the satellite ping arc does not get you to Iran, the Arabian peninsula, or the east coast of Africa unless you had straight line flight but then it wouldn't be on the ping arc.

Now here is a route that gets you to Tehran in ~3750 nm and intersects with the Inmarsat ping radius (https://tinyurl.com/nrxl4c5) and BTW, also not flying over heavily watched India, Pakistan or the "interesting" part of China. Problem is though that they say at 8:11am there would only have been about 45 minutes of flight time left, so don't see how you make that second leg after a turn at Kochkor, Kyrgyzstan, but maybe I'm looking at it wrong (or the 45 minute stat is wrong if they are flying a slower speed?).

dixontj93060 said:

Now here is a route that gets you to Tehran in ~3750 nm and intersects with the Inmarsat ping radius (https://tinyurl.com/nrxl4c5) and BTW, also not flying over heavily watched India, Pakistan or the "interesting" part of China. Problem is though that they say at 8:11am there would only have been about 45 minutes of flight time left, so don't see how you make that second leg after a turn at Kochkor, Kyrgyzstan, but maybe I'm looking at it wrong (or the 45 minute stat is wrong if they are flying a slower speed?).

View attachment 166323

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I have been unable to find an official plot of the supposed flight path from any reliable media or government source. The chart that I posted above was obtained from https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/malaysia-airlines-missing-flight-mh370-timeline-air-mystery-1440022 It shows the original 2 search zones northeast and west of Malaysia and the last estimated reported position of the aircraft in the Gulf of Thailand. From that point what we know is that MH370 turned west and crossed the Malay peninsular near the Malaysia-Thailand border. We also know the last reported position of MH370 at 2:15 was south of Puket and several hundred miles west of the previously reported position.....The 2 lines I added to the chart represent my interpretation of the wording of the reports. It centers the westward turning point near the center of the eastern Gulf of Thailand search area, and the last estimated westerly location in the center of the initial western search area at the junction of the Straight of Malacca and the Andaman Sea. The center to center flight path is approximately WNW as opposed to my W direction but there is no evidence at 2:15 that MH370 had made a north or south turn as require by the northern-or-southern path hypothesis.

I contend that without other evidence to the contrary the flight proceeded over international waters towards MLE in the Maldives to stay over international waters without radar coverage, and then turned NWbN towards Iran also over international waters without radar coverage. The HKT-MLE-IKA is about 6 hours and 50 minutes at 540 nm. My starting location of HKT is very conservative or should shift the 2:15 last known estimated time to ~1:50 if the flight had actually started at Puket International. If I were heading to IKA the speed would have to be a bit faster, or the course a little shorter, but this is not far off. If the landing field was in mid Iraq, Yemen or East Africa the time is better as the distances are shorter.

Furthermore, the position of the arc is not as well known as shown on any of the charts. It is really a band several hundred miles band around the proposed arc and would I assume also depend on sunspot activity and atmospheric properties which are not known that well.

So far I have yet to see any definitive data to preclude my supposition of a more sinister westerly flight path over international waters without radar coverage at high altitude.

Bob

Occam's Razor applies
1. Pilot family moves out of house prior to flight. Marital and/or family problems.
2. Pilot decides suicide is an appropriate response.
3. Just before leaving Malaysia ATC he keys in new course, instructs copilot to say so long to M ATC.
4. Pilot tells co, take a break, visit the cabin and schmooze the passengers in 1st class, which he likes to do apparently.
5. Pilot locks the cabin, flys to aircraft ceiling, depressurizes the cabin to put the passengers and crew to sleep peacefully.
6. Pilot disables transponder etc, sets a course for the one of the deepest and roughest sections of ocean on earth, with the aim of making recovery of any evidence of suicide extremely difficult preserving any life savings payout to his children.