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To Eliminate Flight 370 Theories, Start With A Ruler, Pencil And Map
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
No conventional scenario accounts for the methodical disabling of the communications systems, the bizarre altitude changes and professional navigation to way points, or the presumed turn south and a flight path that extended to at least 8:11 a.m.
UPDATE ON POSSIBLE DEBRIS: the 24-meter (79-feet) object is located far to the south of the search field indicated on the map below. The remote area is known as a floating junkyard, so while this could be yet another false lead, it appears to be the only credible lead at this point: If this is the debris of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, what happens next?
Every plausible theory about what happened to Flight 370 has to not only fit the most reliable facts (radar tracks and satellite data) but basic geography. A widely circulated scenario proposed by Chris Goodfellow theorizes that a fire (from either a smoldering front tire or electrical fire) filled the cockpit with smoke and caused the pilots to head for the nearest major runway which happened to be to the west on Langkawi.
The reason why the transponder and ACARS systems were deactivated is the pilots pulled all the fuses in an attempt to control the electrical fire.
In Goodfellow's reconstruction, this gallant effort failed and the pilots were overcome by fumes and lost consciousness. The aircraft then flew on the westward heading on autopilot until it ran out of fuel and crashed into the sea.
THis scenario has been critiqued on a number of points: Here's What Pilots Think About The New Idea That The Missing Plane Flew For Hours After A Fire Killed The Pilots documents that full-face oxygen masks were easily accessible, nixing the notion that the pilots could not possibly have had time to radio air traffic control.
A “Startlingly Simple Theory” About the Missing Airliner is Sweeping the Internet. It’s Wrong addresses other problems with the scenario.
I've prepared a map with the "it has to be somewhere along this line" arc based on satellite data and Flight 370's last known west-bound heading. This heading has been confirmed by both Malaysian and Thai military radar.
if the pilots lost consciousness and the aircraft continued west on autopilot, the 777 would have been approaching India before its fuel ran out and and it ditched into the sea. This is not even close to the arc traced by the satellite transmission at 8:11 a.m.
The satellite data also conflicts with theories that have Flight 370 being diverted to Diego Garcia, a U.S./British military base 1,200 southwest of Sri Lanka, which is well away from the arc.
The problem is that various pieces of data do not support conventional scenarios based on past losses of commercial airliners. We can start with the fact that the Boeing 777 is one of the safest aircraft in commercial use. The only fatalities occurred quite recently as a result of pilot error.
The fire scenario in which pilots can't find time to radio ATC (air traffic control) but they manage to navigate multiple way points using the flight computer is not plausible. Not only do the masks and the safety record of the 777 make this a stretch (not to mention that a DC-8 is not necessarily a useful analogy to a 777) it's not yet clear (due to conflicting reports) whether the pilots could deactivate the ACARS system from the cockpit; some reports suggest that requires opening a floor compartment in the aisle outside the cockpit.
The methodical disabling of the two separate communications systems is inconsistent with an emergency that allowed the pilots enough time to change course via the flight computer, navigate to way points and change altitude.
The bizarre altitude changes (climbing to 45,000 feet, well beyond the aircraft's designed ceiling and then descending to 23,000 feet, according to Malaysian military radar) and lengthy flight path along navigational way points do not align with the pilot suicide scenario. In the two previous instances of pilot suicide (both denied by the host nations for reasons of face), the suicidal pilot dove the aircraft into the sea early in the flight.
The complex flight path westward does not align with this unless the pilot was aiming to ditch the aircraft beyond the reach of recovery. And if this were the goal, why climb to 45,000 feet and then descend to 23,000?
My pilot sources report that the 777 (along with all other commercial aircraft) are designed to fly within a narrow envelope of efficiency to conserve fuel. It's pushing the envelope hard to take an almost fully loaded airliner above its designed ceiling (around 43,000 feet). What possible motivation could there have been for this action, and the subsequent drop to 23,000 feet?
A struggle with hijackers comes to mind, but there is no solid evidence that any of the passengers or other crew members had the motivation or training to hijack the aircraft and either fly the 777 in the professional manner demonstrated or coerce the pilots to disable the communications systems and proceed west.
The passage over known Malaysian military bases suggests to some observers that the pilots may have been trying to draw a response, i.e. force the Malaysian Air Force to scramble fighters, but this did not happen.
That leaves a struggle between captain and co-pilot as one explanation for the wild changes in altitude, but if that occurred, the rogue pilot retained control and the communication systems remained off.
Since there is no evidence (after 12 days) that Flight 370 headed north and landed or crashed on land, official speculation has turned to the southern arc.
In order to reach the southern reaches of the arc, Flight 370 had to have turned south sometime after Malaysian and Thai military radar lost contact with the 777 around 2:30 a.m. Once again, this decision (the only possible choice left if the northern route has been ruled out) does not align with hijacking aimed at stealing the aircraft or holding the passengers hostage, given the paucity of potential landing sites. And if the presumed hijacking was intended to be an act of terrorism that murdered all 239 people on board, why fly the 777 six hours beyond the point when the presumed hijackers took control of the cockpit?
While it is certainly possible that the pilots were incapacitated by some event after they turned the aircraft south and the 777 flew on autopilot until it crashed somewhere close to this arc, the fact that the aircraft was obviously being piloted up to that turn south only deepens the mystery.
No conventional scenario accounts for the methodical disabling of the communications systems, the bizarre altitude changes and professional navigation to way points, or the presumed turn south and a flight path that extended to at least 8:11 a.m., almost six hours after the aircraft flew beyond the Malaysian military radar's range.
As noted in my previous entries on Flight 370, it is possible that the U.S. Navy's SOSUS (Sound Surveillance System)(Wikipedia) may be active in the region of interest. According to this article on the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS), an advanced version was put in place in the mid-2000s.
On 26 April 1999 Lockheed Martin Corp., Manassas, Va., was awarded a $107,031,978 firm-fixed-price contract for Phase II of a deep water, undersea surveillance system. This system is a long life, passive acoustic surveillance system that can be configured for multiple mission applications. It has the capability to provide long-term barrier and field acoustic surveillance, long-range acoustic surveillance coverage of open ocean areas, and acoustic surveillance in areas with high ambient noise. This contract contains one option, which, if exercised, would bring the total cumulative value of this contract to $153,234,288.
Although there is no public indication that the SOSUS system detected an acoustic signal that could have been Flight 370 crashing into the sea, we can anticipate that no public announcement would be made. Rather, various naval assets would be directed to search in the appropriate area.
Unfortunately, even if the black box is recovered, we may never know what transpired in the cockpit from 1:00 a.m. on, as the black box only records the previous two hours of cockpit voice data (it records 25 hours of other flight data). If the aircraft was on autopilot those last two hours (or was flown by a silent human pilot), there may well be little record of events in the cockpit prior to the two-hour mark.
It increasingly appears to be a mystery that will never be solved with any certainty.
My previous entry on Flight 370:
Finally, a Plausible Scenario of What Happened to Flight 370 (March 17, 2014)
Thanks to Roy M., M33 and others for correcting my egregious error on the map.
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Your memory devices will not withstand fire or saltwater intrusion and still hold the information. Plus they're not painted bright orange.
Additionally, they will not record the 300,000 hours of voice over the life of the aircraft and still be clear.
[presumed turn south and a flight path that extended to at least 8:11 a.m]
Is that Malaysia time, US time or what I wonder. big difference in air time accoring to what time zone they used for that.
All times are in local zone unless stated as Zulu. That's the convention.
Used to be "Greenwich" time, now Zulu, because it is on the Zero meridian, passing through Greenwich, UK.
I am not a pilot, but several friends are both commercial and private piots. They have suggested an alternate scenario for the rapid increase in altitude:
You go upt to 45K feet and depressurize the plane. Pilots wear oxygen and all passengers are dead in 90 seconds.
This is etremely macabre and I hope is not what occurred, but I suppose no scenario is going to have a happy ending...
Not sure how realistic / possible this is, as I am not apilot myself.
Pilots can change the air pressure of the cabin from inside the cockpit.
No need to change altitude at all.
Obvious, isn't it? So why would corporate and political propaganda media even try and spin this theory? We have no facts but we do know for a fact that MH370 is a conspiracy.
Apparently he could have just depressrised the plane at 36k feet, i think there are still masks for 10 minutes though, after that everyone would die.
How does a pilot depressurize an airplane?
I thought oxygen masks would drop down in front of all the passengers when there's a loss of pressure. Or are all those comic strip like drawings I see every time I fly a plane wrong?
like this one?
In addition to dialing back the cabin altitude with the pressurization controller manually - there's also a cabin dump valve that opens the two pressure control valves at the back of the aircraft. The passenger masks should drop automatically, however, once the cabin pressure drops below an altitude of 14.5k' or so.
And even if this material in the water does turn out to be say, a sill from a door frame for a 777, well that doesn't help that much, because this stuff has been drifting on currents and pushed by winds and waves for how long now? It will be so far from the crash site as to not really help that much, just narrows down the search area to maybe 500 km radius - on the bottom.
This is going to go on, and on.
All these "experts" with their estimations on the range of this flight. Tell me, were these experts personally filling the fuel tanks of this plane before takeoff? According to the WiKi page for the 777, it has a maximum range of slightly over 9,000 nautical miles when fully fueled. Sure, you can listen to the official word on how much fuel was on board but we all know that everyone in government always tells the truth, right? There's a whole lot of weirdness surrounding this flight. Coupled with the 2 ex-Navy SEALS that died, via suspicious circumstances, after guarding some mysterious cargo that was bound for MH370. As somebody else said on here yesterday...... I wonder when and where this plane will show up next and what exactly will it be carrying.
Why is EVERYONE ignoring this little island with a long landing strip (but 270 didn't quite make it there) on the southern red line ?
It's known as the Cocos (Keeling) island group - mostly uninhabited small islands. Have not seen it mentioned although it is in line with the Maldives sighting course extension - seen flying low and headed south southwest.
Exercise your mouse; look it up on google maps. And no, I'm not giving the URL, do it yourself !
Cocos islands are one possibilty. It was mentioned here some time ago.
Christmas island airport has never been mentioned that I've seen, but perhaps it's runway is inadequate. Still it's 6900 ft., so not too bad maybe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Island_Airport
6.9k' is plenty long enough.
Yes, it was my post.
Think about this scenario - someone had a dark hold on the pilot or he was offered an enormous sum, plus protection of his family. Pilot kills co-pilot after last radio transmission, one or two passangers join him on the flight deck, and he proceeds with the documented manuvers. Heading south for the Cocos, he is spotted only once on his way to predetermined waypoint, flies until almost out of fuel, then ditches the huge aircraft in the calm waters, gear up, full flaps and dive brakes (if on a 777 ?) to bring it in at stall in ground effect. Empty aircraft as far as fuel goes, and if Scully did it, so can he. Maybe winds up just off the beach of a deserted island.
Rest of the scenario involves removing the valuable cargo and making an escape by submarine as the aircraft will sink, but take a long time doing it. Perfectly planned and executed in a matter of hours les than one day. Painless death for most. Fits all the known facts.
Of course, all this depends on the true cargo. Gold, Plutonium; what else is valuable enough - perhaps 10 knowledge workers ? A great script, wonder if it might not be true.
About 12 miles north of Cocos lies North Keeling Island, a classic old volcano next to a deeep trench offshore to the East. Uninhabited in appearance, and on the erdge of nowhere. That's my pick. Show me wrong.
Ok a rogue pilot didn't evade all radar and land a 777 in a remote jungle island by himself. One would need support on the ground at a facility large enough to land a jet that size AND hide it! That leaves one agency that has the ability and resources to pull that off. An agency that has a knowledge of the radar in the area and the ability to avoid the radar. An agency that can refuse access to its base where the plane safely landed and go unchallenged.
I would like to know the cargo of the plane. My question is why it was not simply blown up? What cargo was on that plane that the spooks wanted secretly and safely unloaded?
I guess - moment of madness the pilot took it to 45k feet to "see what would happen" or to kill or injure people on the flight for reasons known to himself. After that he knew his career / life was over but wasn't sure what to do, switched off locators and went west instinctively to avoid immediate landing then decided to go on an oblivion ride south into the ocean until the fuel ran out. His intention may have been for the plane to never be found so no one would know what he'd done. As you mention saving face is a big thing over there or maybe that was about power or control. Basically if the pilot is insane anything is possible really. It could have been a moment of madness that escalated.
Another scenario that doesn't work. Chaos in the cabin as hijackers try to break in to the cockpit. The pilot immediately turns the plane around.(why no mayday call then...?)
Then the hijackers break in and have the pilot fly the plane to where they want. However pilto plays games with them and make sure the plane wanders everywhere except where they want..basically ditching the plane in the ocean (heroes), or hijackers frustrated with pilots for playing games and kill them...and plane flys along last setting until runs out of fuel.
Pilot would only do that if they knew the hijakcers were going to fly the plane into something. Hijackers might be able to crudely disable some communications...but no way could they or would they bother with the transponder.
Big problems with most scenarios.
Oxygen/air masks
Transponder
Continous navigation
Can only see two scenarios that work. Plane stolen and was pre planned by a significant authority..OR a pilot gone totally nuts - totally irrational....kills flight crew, cuts comms and transponders...and wanders about until fuel runs out. Plane loses altitude during fight, and then put into a climb setting ..until too high...as fight continues and assailant wins. Assailant is in a position of no return...so just flys the plane until the end.
They should look very closely into flight crews home life... divorce? crimes? wife cheating? ...... mental diseases?
Most insane mass murderers are not going to have the discipline to arrainge for their last act to be so anonymous. What kind of nut steals an aircraft full of people and then plots to make the disappearance seem mysterious?
My friend, people do fucked up weird things and the world is a strange yet wonderful place. I could tell you stories much weirder than this one.
If plane flying so low surely some shipping and boats also heard the thing flying by....they are pretty loud, especially low.
One simple scenario is a fire on board- explains the quick left turn, electrinics out and potentially the climb to high altitude. written by a pilot:
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire
The engines ran for another 7 hours not to mention that absolutely no distress was sent.
This fire theory is stupid.
Sorry, but this article is moronic. I didn't think Charles Hugh-Smith or whatever his name is, was retarded but he plainly has some problems with his maths, map reading, and sources.
Here's a little factoid for you: The distance between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing is 2339.4 Nm. The distance between Kuala Lumpur and Diego Garcia is 1865 Nm. So his insistence that MH370 could not make that distance to Diego Garcia when the plane was loaded with enough fuel to reach Beijing + 1hr flying emergency fuel by aviation law, does not compute at all.
He also ignores eyewitnesses on the nearby island of the Maldives (So is everyone else) who saw a low flying passenger jet that matches the description of the Malaysian Airline Boeing.
Bravo
Reserves are not clear cut, I put this in plain-english terms from the regs requirements:
IFR Fuel Reserve Definition: You must carry enough fuel to depart and get to the destination, PLUS enough fuel to account for all possible changes to wind-weather, holding, air traffic control clearance, and any other foreseeable condition that may delay the landing of the aircraft, PLUS a minimum of 45 minutes extra fuel at a normal cruise throttle setting.
Thus 90 minutes of extra fuel at standard-cruise throttle setting will satisfy or just exceed that requirement.
However, there is also this requirement (this is from US regs):
Thus pilots in the US typically use this further additional definition:
NBAA IFR Reserves Definition - extra fuel sufficient to also:
After a missed approach, climb out to 5000 ft AGL.
Loiter throttle setting for 5 minutes at 5,000 ft to get a new clearance.
Climb and proceed to a 200 nm alternate, on long-range cruise throttle setting
Loiter throttle at the alternate for up to 30 minutes of holding at 5000 ft.
Then enough fuel remaining for approach and landing.
It's a lot of fuel.
So a jet's fuel reserve will usually not be a number like 60 mins, especially with an over water flight, and will be closer to 90 mins, or even almost 2 hours. It also depends on winds aloft and weather. The only way to know where it could reach is to refer to the pre-takeoff fuel load that was reported to the operator's regional base.
Thank you Element for the information. That has made me wondering for some time. How come (the public doesn't know about) the fuel intake was not (yet??) properly investigated?
Malaysians and others are not stupid, I assume, they can figure out fuel statistics. Why/how no information about this?
It's not that distance, idiot, it's the number of miles flown and the time involved. Aviation fuel is measured in pounds on takeoff and is burned as time at speed. That's how range is figured. Diego is just plain out of range at last transmission point in terms of time and fuel.
Cocos is within range.
You know nothing.
How do we know that the "last transmission point" is truthful?
CS is an AIPAC whore, just like KUNSTLER, why is ZH spoon feeding this bullshit?
With all the real ALT sources, ... why this shit?
Me thinks its because CS on the the GOOGLE white-list, and ZH needs to keep their ranking's high, which keeps google nickels flowing.
If ZH were to post OP's from the black-list world, then ZH would be rank-fucked.
GOOGLE is ZIONISM, white list is pro-zio, or zio-controlled opposition.
Anybody telling the truth about SPYNET or ZIO-CON get's black-listed on GOOGLE, comments are expected to be anti zio, but they get tracked to the source by CASS SUNSTEIN in his orginal paper when he developed this means of controlling the opposition.
BUAP: Boeing Uninterruptible Auto-Pilot
Just Google it.
BUAP: Boeing Uninterruptible Auto-Pilot
Just Google it.
That's right, and only read the FEMA, DHS, or US-MIL sources on this device.
What it does is BLOCK CELL PHONES, so that hijackers can't talk to the ground.
Disables all infligtht control from those on board, ...
Takes the plane 'home'
What we need to know "WHO" was in control?
BUAP talks about 'service control center' top secret location? WHo gubmint or BOEING? Would Malay government even know about this device? Why would any country on earth want to give this kind of power to the CIA/NSA (BOEING)?
Any accident that the same time this technology came out BOEING HQ was moved to CHICAGO ( ZIO-CMD CENTER )
Cass Sunstein, Rahm Emanuel, all operated ZIO-CONTROL out of CHICAGO.
Ok. Not that this matter or will be read by anyone. We've known all along where this plane is. Unfortunately not good. We (defense establishment) has been using this event as a chance to watch Chinese military in search and rescue. If there were survivors more would have been done initially for rescue.
The US had employed 5 types of NRO sats. With subtypes in certain groups. Optical with hyper spectral imaging, infrared, SAR(indigo lacrosse onyx), and sigint. The last one is to sensitive to talk about.
That's all I will say. Watch, in the next few days there will be the announcement. My sympathy for the families.
"I also spotted Big Foot doing the backstroke," the same Australian pilot reported.
it all smells fishy.
So Rolls Royce can monitor each of their engines in the sky, but not the position.
They even said that their engines were still working after 7 hours.
So RR must know also if the WN370 engines came to an abrupt standstill or that they stopped after a controlled landing? No?
Yes, they know. But we don't. And why do we not know?
Because the disappearance of MN370 is now a military operation.
Perhaps.
But military operations serve a purpose.
The purpose being ....? Money, Knowledge, Information, Power? Something else?
There is something very yiddish about all of this with the jew crybabies in Israhole going on about an attack by this aircraft and then blaming in the Iranian muzzies.
I read that the course change was entered into the computer by 1:07am, 12 minutes before the co-pilot (or pilot) said "Good night" to the air controller. Or has this been refuted?
If so, it would mean that the course change was not in response to an in-flight emergency, but for some other reason. Also, it seems kind of suspicious that contact would be lost just at the handoff point between Malaysian and Vietnamese air controllers. If someone wanted to divert a plane from its normal course, that would be the best place to do it.
I hope they find the plane and survivors. But if the course-change chronology is true, it is hard to see how some form of foul play could not have been involved.
Why would the pilot commit suicide and kill others as well? How does this help his political desires? Makes no sense. Then flies hours and hours just to ditch? Weird stuff.
Thank you, Man.
If I wanted to intercept a civilian plane, it would be at the transition point.
It sure may be some foul play, but then, who didn't follow the rest of the script or why/where did it the script go wrong?
Anyone's guess (sorry for my name)
Seems to me if it was a fire, it sure didn't affect navigation or control systems, as the autopolit just kept on truckin'
the plane would appear at G-20 meeting in April, Australia.
What are the "Three D's" of CYA?
Delay, deny, defend. Which one are we seeing ATM?
Is it just possible that the Malaysian Pilot discovered the location of Gilligans Island on a previous flight???
Over time, he decided to forfeit his crew, his passengers and fly to the Lagoon and land the plane and visit Gilligan, the Skipper too, the Millionaire and his wife, the Movie Star, The Professor and, Marrianne here on Gilligans Isle"
It makes as much sense as anything else!
PS Maybe he'll get to meet his hero "Wrongway Feldman"
MH-370 boat arrives on scene NOTHING FOUND
OSLO: A Norwegian ship on Thursday reached an area of the Indian Ocean where possible debris of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane was spotted, shipping company Hoegh Autoliners said. “The ship has arrived at the site to take part in the search,” said Cecilie Moe, spokeswoman for the Norwegian company. No object likely to have come from flight MH370 has been recovered at this stage, said Christian Dahll, another spokesperson for Hoegh Autoliners. Dahll added that the search window for Thursday was limited since sunset was at around 1300 GMT. “The ship will travel along a route provided by Australian authorities until nightfall,” he told AFP. * Charles Smith is full of shit, the plane was sent to KAZAHKSTAN on "BOEING UNINTERRPTIBLE PILOT".Great mystery, great misery.
Normally, I prefer simple, logical, elegant (suggestions of) explanations, but this leaves the world baffled.
If those don't work, well, it might be a plot.
In this case, at this stage, with so many puzzles, and so many experts and investigators, I can not help but feel it was not a just plot, but a sort of a plot, double plot and then (double) plot gone wrong.
Too intricate a plot, too intricate the double plot, then errors made (a human not following the script?), leading to disaster. Too sad....
This Gordian knot will take more then just a sword to unravel. One keeps guessing.
To those involved: was it worth it?
It's cargo was lithium batteries...not gold but hotter
http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/could-lithium-ion-batteries-have-caused-a...
Fire in the hold ,bitches
Personnaly I favour the landed in Pakistan,CIA story...Are Isreal forces on high Alert?
Obama is a hero if he rescues the hostages......but then again he's so far in the hole ,he ain't never going to see daylight