Missing Malaysian Aircraft – is it possible…

I still don’t understand how it was so far south of it’s starting point, surely such an experience pilot knows where the nearest land is should they need to land. Still, sad for the families

Do you mean the antenna in Exmouth – pretty sure it’s now run by contractors not the military (at least it was when I was down that way last year)

I thought that was for talking to/from submarines? It looks quite impressive but I don’t think it shoots down airliners.

So now the Malaysians are confirming that the plane def crashed in the Indian Ocean. Why do I find them hard to believe? Oh yeah, becuase no-one’s actually found anything yet and the larger pieces of ‘stuff’ are to far apart to be related.
If I were cynical I’d suggest that the Malaysians just want this episode to go away.

The only scenario I can think off that made them fly to OzLand is the fact someone(s) wants to seek asylum there so hijacked the plane. Then fuel ran out …

And so the simplest explanation which is usually correct comes into play, really an aircraft has crashed into the sea.

The only scenario I can think off that made them fly to OzLand is the fact someone(s) wants to seek asylum there so hijack the plane. Then fuel ran out …

No, they could easily have reached Australia.
The only two plausible explanations now are:
Suicidal pilot / co pilot taking everyone with them
Attempted hijacking and the pilot steered the aircraft away from civilisation while telling hijackers that yes, they’d be in [insert destination] very soon.

I suppose a third option is some kind of daredevil mid air transfer of whatever wildly expensive cargo the plane was carrying (as per the film Cliffhanger) or an air drop to a waiting ship with the pilots/hijackers parachuting to safety like in Mission Impossible 2.

/conspiracy theory mode

crazy-legs – Member

No, they could easily have reached Australia.
The only two plausible explanations now are:
Suicidal pilot / co pilot taking everyone with them

Highly unlikely for Malaysians even though they do have extremists in their country the notion of suicide by taking others with them is not part of their culture.

Attempted hijacking and the pilot steered the aircraft away from civilisation while telling hijackers that yes, they’d be in [insert destination] very soon.

Yes, this is highly likely as OzLand is seen part of the Western alliance while crashing into China is like throwing bunch of needles into haystack. The impact on China is practically non-existence. Chinese will simply multiply.

I don’t believe the pilot wanted to land – whatever the reason for that might be (and I expect the answer is we’ll never know, not even if they do find the black boxes – voice recorder will have only got the last 2 hours, and the chances are that’s 2 hours of silence).

My theory:

Pilot wanted to top himself but his life insurance won’t pay out for suicide so to look after his families interests he’s flown a long range jet to the most inaccessible place where it’s virtually impossible to recover the plane/flight recorder.

No flight recorder=no proof of suicide=Insurance payout for wife and kids.

flatfish – Member

My theory:

No flight recorder=no proof of suicide=Insurance payout for wife and kids

Don’t be silly. Nobody buys insurance that way there and insurance company will certainly not pay out regardless of how a person died.

You have to remember that you are referring to a developing country.

I’m surprised the data held on the black box is still only held on the black box and not on a remote server as well. If Rolls Royce can receive real time data about their engines from planes in the sky, why isn’t the data normally held on a black box periodically uploaded to a remote server? Sure there are going to times when the aircraft can’t transmit the data but storing and sending it later is far better than not sending it at all.

I presume because the black boxes are very rarely used, and when they are it’s extremely unusual that they’re not found right away. They also need to keep recording right up until the end, which a transmitter system might not do.

If Rolls Royce can receive real time data about their engines from planes in the sky, why isn’t the data normally held on a black box periodically uploaded to a remote server?

Because there are tens of thousands of flights worldwide every single day and the cost of implementing it outweighs the one case every decade where it might conceivably be of any use.

The 2 hr limit is because of pilots privacy concerns.

Of course, if it is deliberate then chances are the CBs for the cockpit voice recorder and DFDR were pulled at the same time.

Can’t be done, can it?

The cvr and dfdr run on an independent power supply. Even if the pilot can pull cb’s they will still run on via an independent power supply. It’s the whole point of these devices that they continue to operate right upto the point the plane crashes and cannot be turned off.

Have they changed the cvr and fdr since 1997? As this guy switched them off. SilkAir185

After hours of discussions at work (still winter schedules so quiet), the most plausible scenario we’ve came up with is this;

The A/C has experience an electrical fire. As per the aviate/navigate/communicate rule, the pilots immediate reaction would be to isolate the cause and set course for the nearest diversion airfield, which for the pilot, would be a known airfield in Malaysia. In the confusion of dealing with the scenario and because communicate is last on the check list, power was shut down before the a May Day, or squawk change could be given to alert ATC to the problem. The pilots have been overcome with smoke on the flight has continued until it’s ran out if fuel.

Being devils advocate I can pick holes in the scenario but balancing everything up this seems the most plausible. As for the hijack or unlawful interference scenario, we think it’s a lot of media hype and fantasy.

My supervisor is ex-raf and through ex workmates still serving, he has been told that all the nations in the area have been very guarded with their radar information as they don’t want capabilities known. The Thais and the Vietnamese being the worst. This is why there was a lot if confusion early on and why instead of the Malaysian aviation authority taking the lead, it was very quickly given to ICAO to deal with as they have more authority.

That scenario doesn’t fit at all with several known facts though, such as ACARS being turned off before the last radio comms and several changes of course being made after last contact.

Why is the hijack or unlawful interference scenario fantasy when that does actually fit the known facts? Why the reluctance to accept that scenario?

such as ACARS being turned off before the last radio comms and several changes of course being made after last contact.

This has been clarified and is not proven.

The cvr and dfdr run on an independent power supply. Even if the pilot can pull cb’s they will still run on via an independent power supply. It’s the whole point of these devices that they continue to operate right upto the point the plane crashes and cannot be turned off.

They can still be isolated – though a quick look at the AMM suggests that for the 777 that requires access to the E&E bay, making it a far more challenging job than switching off the ACARS or transponder.

Certainly it’s an option to get a battery-backed CVR, but since it’s not mandated IFAIK I can’t imagine any airline paying extra for it.

If that scenario was true, i.e. they turned west upon having an electrical fire, why then did they turn south and end up in the middle of the indian ocean. If they were overcome, they would have ended up somewhere in the Arabian sea.

Hey, I didn’t say this is what happened, but by deduction we found that this was a likely scenario, albeit with holes in it. As for the hijack scenario, there is a list of things such as cockpit access, ability to aviate, no demands etc which made us disregard this scenario quite quickly. Plus, the media have a track record of creating hysteria that turns out to be false.

aracer – Member

Why is the hijack or unlawful interference scenario fantasy when that does actually fit the known facts?

Does it? Who’s claimed responsibility, who’s gained from it? Why hijack a plane then fly it off somewhere to crash where nobody can see it happen?

most planes (74%?) crash because of mechanical failure and in the absence of any hijack demands etc it would seem the most likely

I suppose it could be a passenger who wanted to get to australia?

either that or the Malaysian government are suppressing something really embarrassing – like the pilot protesting over the sodomy charges against the malaysian opposition leader the day before?

whatever happened mustve been terrible for those on board and for their families

The impact (of crashing a plane) on China is practically non-existence. Chinese will simply multiply.

That’s actually left me almost speechless. Have a word with yourself.

Surely…most planes (74%?) THAT crash DO SO because of mechanical failure and in the absence of any hijack demands etc it would seem the most likely

Does it? Who’s claimed responsibility, who’s gained from it? Why hijack a plane then fly it off somewhere to crash where nobody can see it happen?

I think the scenario goes something along the lines of the plane being hijacked with the desire of the hijackers to fly to Austraila for some reason. The pilots prevent this by saying, “nearly there” as they fly past and run out of fuel over the sea.

Again full of holes though. Why would a pilot ditch in the sea if the hijackers wanted them to land safely in a Western country. Sure it’s a still a bad situation but better off maybe dead than definately dead. If the hijackers had control of the plane why did they not crash somewhere visibile.

The only scenario that seems to hold water is the robbery scenario, something valuable in the hold so make the plane dissapear while half inching it. The issue with this is its very difficult to imagine anything valuable enough to go to this much trouble and it would be very very difficult to pull off. Any would something that valuable just be transported in the hold of a comercial jet?

But one thing is for certain. If it was deliberate they picked a good area but made one mistake, the engine pinging the satelite and the plane being located using dopler shift!

most planes (74%?) crash because of mechanical failure

Citation needed. I thought most crashes were due to pilot error.

most planes (74%?) crash because of mechanical failure

Could not be further from the truth.

Most planes crash due to pilot error.

i dont know a great deal at all about aviation, althought ive followed this from day with interest

something that gets me and i cant understand at all is :

if there was a fire/electrical problem, sure it couldnt have possibly flown for 8 hours plus? a burning plane would surely not last 8 hours? also that piece of equipment was proven to be turned off that stops giving readings of where abouts?

but as above even if there was a problem with a fire etc surely they/somebody on board would have attempted to make contact via mobile or other wise? especially the flight crew???? the transponder thing was deliberately turned off according to the info we have read

but more to the point above, how could a malfunction/fire on a plane keep flying for 8 hours to then suddenly crash?

not buying that at all, even if they were gassed out, somebody especially cabin/flight crew could have alerted somebody! especially given it did a u turn on its usual flight path back over malaysia?

i seriously think it was either hijacked or the pilot had issues, if it was hijacked then maybe they tried to force the pilot to fly it into somewhere else and he thought best to send it into the middle of nowhere to let it run out of fuel

but seriously some form of fire/electrical malfunction/ how would a plane fly for 8 hours? i would have thought a fire would burn a plane in minutes and electrical fault would surely cause the plane to not be able to fly for a further 8 hours

something definitely fishy about it

my bad according to this
http://www.statisticbrain.com/airplane-crash-statistics/
50% pilot error
22% mechanical failure

I have to admit, as a 777 Longhaul pilot I am completely baffled as to how the a/c got from its last known position and track, to where it seems to have ended up.

I’ll say it again, there is holes in my fire scenario but a small fire wouldn’t effect structural integrity but the fumes created could incapacitate. The Swiss flight over the North Atlantic was a case study at college (6 years ago so rusty on the detail) about team resource management. There was a fire above the cockpit. If you look at the search area it’s a nearly a reciprocal track of the outbound route to Beijing so IMO it’s been a conscious decision to about turn. This gives me the impression the captain took the decision as it was a left turn. If the pilot had been trying to isolate the root of the fire he will have systematically turned off the systems and may have not been able to turn them back on. This is the biggest flaw in our theory. I can’t believe the crew had no ability to communicate.

Dan, did it not just turn around after the last radar contact? (I personally am very sniffy about the whole thing, whilst I am not into conspiracy theories, my spidey sense is tingling. I am not at all convinced that it did go down to the southern indian ocean)

re the mobile phones

apparently once out over the ocean there wouldve been no reception
and especially so at cruising height, even over land

still does seem odd that there was no way to send any message??

I just cant see how thats possible a malfunction/fire could allow the plane to continue for the length of journey (8 hours ish), logically somebody on that plane could have made a distress call at some point, unless the passengers and rest of crew were totally unaware?? and it raises the point if it was a fire etc the passengers surely would have been told to buckle up or similar, and at this point one of them would have text somebody they love just incase worse case scenario? but no, it just flew and flew until the fuel ran out!?!

the transponder thing was turned off deliberately according to facts we’ve been given, had this been on im assuming even over the remote parts of the indian ocean, they could have still made contact??? (can anyone verify that?)

and if it was indeed turned off by malfunction etc etc, surely the pilot or crew given it was turned off over land area in malaysia, at some point a mobile phone would have had a signal to make a distress call worst case?!

i guess if something dodgy with the pilot happened, then the crew (other than co-pilot), and passengers would have been totally unaware they were going off course? maybe then he flew it over the ocean knowing contact was not possible (even with mobiles at that point)

very very very very strange

Where do you fly from dan?

jfletch – Member

The only scenario that seems to hold water is the robbery scenario, something valuable in the hold so make the plane dissapear while half inching it.

So we’re agreed that it was definitely Bane?