XSeries-forum

So what happened? (yeah lets start..  )

how can a plane of that size just 'disappear' in this day and age?

my 10 year-old car can be tracked using GSM/UHF/GPS technologies even if its stolen (well i hope!)

in comparison how can a commercial airliner be untraceable even if its transponder, TCAS are switched off??

and then the simplest thing called 'radar'. wouldn't the plane be visible in the radar of any country, any military, destroyers in the sea etc where-ever it flew? it wasn't as if this was a small private plane or one built with stealth!

If you go and have a look at pprune (it's an aircrew/aviation forum) there are literally hundreds of pages of theories of all sorts.

I think the key questions will be for the air defence radar systems in Malaysia that saw the aircraft but no one reacted to - even though by then the plane was 'missing' and someone should have been looking.  Other radars such as on the Andaman Islands were not even switched on.  It's different in Europe, the US and most of what was the Soviet Union and China where we had a 'Cold War' and then 9-11 really woke everyone up so the skies are constantly being watched and recorded.  But some countries are so big that there is only limited cover.  Similarly there is no cover once you are over the deep ocean.

Pilots have the ability to turn things off in case there is a fire, or the kit throws a fit and needs recycling (just like BMW and the famous battery reset).  If you know your way around a cockpit then it is very easy to do.

Whoever ended up behind the controls knew exactly what they were doing and when to do things so as to disappear.

And if (like me) you have an interest in flight simulation then there are some add-ons that exactly replicate the processes and procedures down to switch by switch operation to get a jet from 'cold & dark' up to airborne with all of the flight plan steps correctly loaded.  There is even a vast global community where you can fly a virtual jet as part if a virtual airline with full weather, traffic management and ATC that runs EXACTLY like the real world.

So the question is now, who was actually flying the plane?  One of the flight crew, or someone else who managed to get into the flight deck and knew what they were doing?

I think we will see another paradigm shift in how aviation security is handled as well.  Thailand recorded more than 60,000 stolen passports in the last 18 months or so but it, like others in Asia, is not even connected to the Interpol passport database in real time.  Some airports have no connection at all.  That simply should not now happen but there is a big security gap in that part of the world.  Their answer will probably be that the threat doesn't affect us so why should we pay?

That an of course law enforcement is patchy and corrupt.  In Thailand that has allowed an expert underworld of forgers who can produce any type of ID you want including passports, visas, licences, security passes etc - many of which will stand very close scrutiny - to get you through checkpoints and even into a cockpit.

Whatever happened is very worrying for the families and concerning for those both who fly for a living and as a passenger.  It seems everyone has to watch everyone else.  I really feel sorry for everyone involved.

You can assist in the search using satellite photos taken on the day at 20 metre resolution using Tomnod if you want to.

Richard

What's your feeling Richard to where it is.

No idea.  I hope it went on the landward part of the arc, as the southern arc has dire and awful consequences.

That being said it's hard to hide a 777.  It's no small jet!!

If it did crash on land then it could be very difficult to find.  One report I read on the 9-11 flight United 93 was that all it left was a 10 metre diameter hole in the ground.

I've been doing some stuff on Tomnod but it takes a fair while to search each assigned image.  Each image must be several km/sq and you go over it at 20 metre resolution.  So far one C130 search plane, a few cargo vessels and loads of tiny fishing boats.  Being unemployed at present gives me a few hours to kill each day - when my young son lets me of course )

I hope for the best, but fear the worst.

Richard

could it have landed in a private air strip, given the size? if its a commercial scale air strip in a 6 hr radius from the last known location (flying time based on fuel) is it not a matter of getting in touch with each of those establishments in those countries? not impossible?

if it ever landed is it too hard to spot from air? after all how many air strips would there be to check..

if the theory of it landing somewhere is even remotely plausible, how about a simple technique like trying to locate any one of those 239 ppl's mobile phones, using a simple technique such as gsm triangulation?. surely at least one of them would have had the phone switched on?

[quote="X5Sport"]
I've been doing some stuff on Tomnod
[/quote]

tried that, how do you know where you're looking? no context re the map shown?

What would it take to hijack one of the largest commercial aircraft, disappear from radar and land completely undetected by either radar or the local population?  As much as I would like this to be the case and therefore hope of the passengers and crew being safe, it just seems too Dr Evil to me.

Had either the captain or first officer decided to hijack the aircraft and then intensionally crash it, then this is more feasible, as the flight crew would have to over come the other guy or wait until he took a call of nature and then lock him out of the cockpit.  But why fly for hours before finally doing the deed? 

This is a big mystery, and given the remote areas the plane is believed to have flown over, it could be years or decades before anything is found.

Don

[quote="jaynana"]
[quote="X5Sport"]
I've been doing some stuff on Tomnod
[/quote]
tried that, how do you know where you're looking? no context re the map shown?
[/quote]

I think the idea is you don't know but when you tag it then it's noted for someone to go and gave a look.  I've only had one bit of land so far.  All I can tell is it is tropical rain forest and the fishing boats look to be Thai/Indonesian/Malaysian.

[quote="Don Coffey"]
What would it take to hijack one of the largest commercial aircraft, disappear from radar and land completely undetected by either radar or the local population?  This is a big mystery, and given the remote areas the plane is believed to have flown over, it could be years or decades before anything is found.

Don
[/quote]

If you can get on the flight deck - supposed to be very difficult nowadays - then for anyone who knows there way around that flight deck it's very easy.

A few years back I did an aeronautical Comms course at Manchester and as part of it we spent several hours on a B767 parked at an out of the way part of the apron.  I ended up in the left seat and when one of my colleagues asked how the plane was started and the instructor said 'you need a key' I chipped in and said it's easy, and you don't need a key.  I was duly challenged to prove it, and proceeded to do just that.  I was allowed to get as far as the point of starting engine 2 (right side) before the instructor stopped me.

I'm not a professional pilot but I have some extremely accurate simulator addons.  In some cases the user manual is a straight lift of the real one from Boeing.  Take off is straightforward, landing not so, but there is so much automation you can fly on automatics all the way down.

If I can do it, then others can and probably much better.  It's why cockpit doors are now so strong and in theory no one else should be on the flight deck.  I think this was a crew job, but why and just where it went is as a Don says likely to be a mystery.  I suspect the CVR and FDR 'black boxes' may also have been turned off too.

It's all very sad, especially for those with now missing loved ones.

Richard

another theory, among many I'm sure