Malaysian Airliner Mystery.

[mikey4444]

This missing airliner is puzzling me somewhat. The area that it was flying is a busy place, air-traffic wise. How can it disappear from the radars of the various Air Traffic Controls that it was flying through ?

I can understand if it suddenly plunged into the sea but now they are saying that it altered course and probably flew for a few hundred miles off its projected course. Don't planes have beacons that pinpoint their location ?

Is there anybody expert in this field here on AB that can throw any light on this affair ?

[EasyCare86]

I think this is a criminal act

[mikey4444]

Me too. If it had developed engine trouble, there would have been ample opportunity for the crew to send a Mayday signal. But it appears to have changed course, flown for a few hundred miles and then disappeared. Classic terrorist attack.

But I still don't understand how the authorities know that it flew hundreds of miles from its last known point. If its "last known point" was as it says, then how do they know it flew anywhere from there ?

I also smell a cover-up here, as this just doesn't make sense.

[vulcan42]

237SJ, there were no transmissions from ACARS at the time of the disappearance.

[Canary42]

Much of the reporting on this event is the Mucky Media making things up in the absence of further data, so speculation such as occurs here and elsewhere on the net is based on false foundations. Just look at how many contradictions have already "emerged". Coupled with possible cover-ups to protect the guilty/incompetent it's a real mess.

[Gromit]

I think this is an accident.
A mistake, or mechanical problem has slowly got worse without the pilots being aware of it until it was too late. They were flying at night when it is easy to get disorientated without sight of the horizon.

It may take many weeks or even years before we get any answers.

[rockyracoon]

Did anyone see the pilot on Sky News this morning, he had quite a plausible explanation.

Plane decompressed so pilots started to turn plane back, oxygen problem rendering pilots and passengers unconscious, plane on autopilot til it ran out of fuel in the middle of the Indian ocean. Don't know how that would fit it with the transponder thingy though.

Who knows!

[Sqad]

Interesting take on this by a retired pilot who said that there could have been a rapid decompression in the cockpit and that the crew were slow to put on their O2 masks, deciding to turn the plane to port first, before blacking out completely.

He surmised that the plane could have reached well into the Indian Ocean at that speed and direction.

[Sqad]

LOL...sorry rocky......

[rockyracoon]

Lol ;)

[237SJ]

That was my initial thought - pilot incapacitation because there was a rumour going around that the plane flew on for quite a while without contact. The pilots are not on the same oxygen system as the passengers though. They don`t have drop down masks as in the cabin. There is a huge black oxygen bottle in the electronics bay for pilot oxygen and they have a system called EROS where they physically have to pull their mask out of a stowage at the side and put it on. It`s yet another possibility, though.

[237SJ]

It happened on Helios as well - a terrible event. I seem to remember there were a lot of children on board. Since then, regular checks on the pilots by the cabin crew take place but whether other airlines outside the EU do that or not is another matter.

[rockyracoon]

God, that might be even worse then, the piolts could have been unconscious but the passengers not :(

[tamborine]

The plane had 6hrs fuel, till 6am (local time) Where would it reach in that time?

[237SJ]

Dunno - it depends on the altitude. If you fly lower, you use more fuel.

[society]

Perhaps the stewardesses drugged themselves, the pilots and passengers, and they all fell asleep and the plane fell into a volcano or crevice in the middle of nowhere. .

[tamborine]

C'mon you lot, it sint a farce....yet. It will make a horror movie :(