I had fairly well concluded that the most likely cause was a fire disrupting the electrical and control systems, when CNN now say the sharp left turn was pre-programmed 12 minutes before sign off from Malaysian Air Traffic control, which was followed fairly quickly by that left turn.
CNN claim to have this from an US official, from data sent back before the reporting systems went off. It is hard to know what to make of it: obviously there are large economic interests that much prefer blame to lie with the pilots rather than the aircraft. But if it is true then the move was not a response to an emergency. (CNN went on to say the pilot could have programmed in the course change as a contingency in case of an emergency. That made no sense to me at all – does it to anyone else?)
I still find it extremely unlikely that the plane landed or crashed on land I cannot believe it could evade military detection as it flew over a highly militarized region. Somewhere there is debris on the ocean. There have been previous pilot suicides that took the plane with them; but the long detour first seems very strange and I do not believe is precedented. However if the CNN information on pre-programming is correct, and given it was the co-pilot who signed off to air traffic control, it is hard to look beyond the pilots as those responsible for whatever did happen. In fact, on consideration, the most improbable thing is that information CNN are reporting from the US official.
Copied from AH thread:
Marlin, there’s more on that here,it’s a good summary;
:From Diego Garcia to Where?
If suppose we are to assume that the plane was indeed diverted to Diego Garcia, it is reasonable to assume that the plane and its passengers would not be kept there indefinitely. If we are to follow the logic of some devoted conspiracy theorists who are pursuing this on other forums, the plane and its passengers would be flown to the Eastern mainland of the United States, over the Atlantic Ocean to escape scrutiny (and comparatively less distance than the other way around). Of course, the plane’s livery would be painted over. The plane’s wreckage would later be carefully deposited by (presumably by air) on a location far away from Diego Garcia.
But why are we discussing this here?
‘Because the same devoted conspiracy theorists who are pursuing this on other forums have pointed out that four days after the disappearance of MH370, a curious military exercise took place on the Southern-Eastern part of the United States coastline. Fighter jets were reportedly “escorting” a plane. To quote,
“Members of the South Carolina Air National Guard are conducting an air defense exercise along the coast. Guard Senior Master Sergeant Edward Snyder says people might see fighter jets escorting a civilian aircraft Thursday over the North Charleston and Myrtle Beach areas.
http://www.cabaltimes.com/2014/03/12/ma370-redirected-to-diego-garcia/
However ,my posting
Mar, 2014 – 11:08 am
With the link for the first Maldive sighting , now being taken seriously by the media, is strengthened & possibly confirms where this MH370 went for refuelling & re-flagging,before travelling further.
Hi Craig. I have the great honor of making the first comment in a new discussion?
You asked: “(CNN went on to say the pilot could have programmed in the course change as a contingency in case of an emergency. That made no sense to me at all – does it to anyone else?)”
Apparently some very conscientious pilots do indeed pre-load a path to the nearest suitable airport in case of emergency, and change it as the flight progresses. It allows them to quickly select the new path with one command if needed.
@Katie
Drat! You beat me to it. One great mystery is how “they” know that somebody entered an alternate course, and whether it was before or after the last communication (whenever that was). It’s all based on an unnamed source, initially I think to the New York Times. Whether it’s a from ACARS via Rolls Royce or Boeing or some other source is unclear.
There may be good legal and business reasons why it isn’t officially announced.
If the plane did land somewhere my guess would be Mongolia or in an area where there is no phone signal, because otherwise there would have been passenger attempts to inform loved ones that they were safe. Suicide still seems most likely short of this.
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/
For others to make of as they will;
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/
“…and given it was the co-pilot who signed off to air traffic control”
How is this significant? With most airlines it’s normal that whoever is the handling pilot for the sector talks on the radio. Ultimately it’s the captain’s decision who is the handling pilot but unless there are special considerations (marginal weather or the like – at British Airways, for example, it’s always the captain who’s handling pilot for autolands) captains and first officers (F/Os) will alternate by sector (ie, flight). A captain who didn’t give F/Os their reasonable share of sectors would be pretty unpopular and would be pulled up by the airline as it wouldn’t be allowing the F/Os to get necessary experience.
By the way, the term “co-pilot” is hardly used these days. I think it has some specific technical meaning, something like that an F/O is considered a “co-pilot” for sectors where they’re not the handling pilot. There’s some rule or other about them only being able to count a certain number of co-pilot hours towards certain licence upgrades (commercial with frozen ATPL to ATPL). Can’t remember the details, read the rules years ago while sitting bored in CAA Flight Crew Licensing at Gatwick while waiting for them to sort out a problem with a rating on my private licence. But normally (ie., except when training or whatever) the person in the left seat is the captain and the one in the right seat is the first officer.
The difference between the two is a lot less than many people think. The captain will typically have had more experience and will have overall responsibility for the flight but when it comes to actual handling of the aircraft both can and will do almost all of the jobs.
If the captain was using the radio for earlier calls and suddenly the FO was talking then that might be slightly significant but likely only indicates that the captain was busy at that moment – maybe he’d gone to the toilet or something. Of course, one of the crew being off the flight deck might be part of the story here but the F/O replying is not in itself sinister in any way.
Breaking news! The only news! From the morning Malaysian press conference. Files Deleted! The pilot had deleted files from his home flight simulator computer.
Shocking, whoever heard of such a thing. Deleted files on a PC.
@Marlin
Hi there on here.
In answer to your question. I wasn’t aware that he reached FL450.
If he did, then that “could” have happened for any number of reasons that could be deliberate or accidental (depending on system failures and awareness of the situation).
ONE thing to remember (and I guess it is the same for Chevaline), the authorities WILL NOT reveal all the data they have.
With regard to ACARS, it depends on what ACARS package MAS has.
Personally I don’t see that they have a “30 minute” burst transmissions. This is the national carrier of Malaysia. Not a “tin pot” airline (although they are behaving in that way).
Also ACARS data won’t be made public. Firstly they are not allowed to do that until after an investigation (and as yet, as far as I am aware, that hasn’t even started. This is still a “search and rescue” mission. The plane is still listed as “missing”).
With regards what could have happened.
@Ed Davies
The “basically” the terms used would be….
PIC and SIC. Pilot In Command and Second In Command.
Then they’ll have designated PF and PNF. Pilot Flying and Pilot Not Flying for that sector.
Here it looks like it was PIC/PF and SIC/PNF due to the fact that the “Co Pilot” was handling the radio communications (and didn’t appear to be stressed).
However….if “that” was his “sign off” to Malaysian ATC, then it was a rather relaxed one (unless there was a communication from the controller just before which was repeated back by the SIC/PNF).
The journalist and author with in-depht knowledge of what went on 9/11, and who has researchet 9/11 like no other, and lost his job as a result of this, Christopher Bollyn, weighs in:
[my emphasis] [links added]
____________________________
Disclaimer:
Bollyn thinks that Israel is directly implicated in 9/11. While this is fascinating – and certainly welcome as a contrast to how the mainstream media portarys the situation (and many of his carefully researched information relating to Israelis in the aircraft business in the US and the like is certainly interesting in itself)- I’ve never been prepared to go that far.
I think Israel’s intelligence services knew what was going to happen, and one can discuss if it’s not a criminality that they did not inform the US authorities. From Israel’s perspective it was enormously important to get the US directly involved in fighting its enemies, and it has since 9/11 gained ‘a new lease of life’, thriving and spinning money and businesses in providing info about all sorts of radical islamists to all the worlds intelligence services, and selling surveillance equipment all over the world.
A country which always has considered itself to be in a permanent state of war is undoubtedly prepared to go to great lenghts, also lenghts that people like us living in peace are not prepared to even consider. But I still hesitate to go along with the notion that they would actually kill 3,000 people on 9/11 to achieve their aim of getting practically the whole world to join its fight, and in this way get a new lease of life.
But lets get a fair trial, as used to happen whenever large amounts of people gets killed in a criminality. But we’ve never had that,- and that very suspicious. Bollyn documents how Jewish lawyers, law enforcement officials and judges time and again have shelved any investigation into those who might have known about what was going to happen. It would be fair to procecute these people, because no matter if Israel had an existential interest in 9/11, it’s not fair to kill close to 3,000 innocents in the process, – not to mention the hundred of thousands of innocents who have died in the wake of 9/11 in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and even Palestine and Lebanon, where Israel used the guise of the global “war on terror” — and its new found self confidence .. to clamp down on Palestinians and Lebanese.
———–
So all in all he’s a lot more sensible than many other commenters, including the right honoured Mr. Craig Murray, because Bollyn is very clear about how it was undue Western interference in Ukraine’s internal affairs, that prompted Putin to take matters into his own hands and show how vital national interests always will trumph fears of santions, -which means its stupid to use sanctions, if they don’t work. It’s not only stupid, it’s detrimental to our own interests, and it could well be dangerous because it is whipping up hatred and contempt. Much more wise it would be to invite Russia into NATO, which they want, and into economic coorperation with the EU – which latter organisation should NEVER have evolved anyfurther than to a British inspired Free Trade Club. If EU still had been primarily a free trade organistaion like the EEC, Russia could easily have joined, and everybody would be happy.
“All okay. Good night” isn’t really a “communication” as such !
Could someone confirm what the “official” communication was, the one released by the Malaysian authorities ?
“There may be good legal and business reasons why it isn’t officially announced”.
It is all governed under the Montreal Convention (Article 21 parargraph 1 and 2). This convention gives the air carrier “limited liability” in return for “presumed fault”.
There are other “conditions” which revolve around the “reckless” behaviour of a carrier (and a bit of a legal mine field), however “if” proved then (I believe) there is no privilege granted of limited liability. The liability could become “unlimited”.
Marcus,
I can’t agree with that ,a lot are posting that theory of fire on Twitter,but surely a fire would have allowed enough time for at least one phone call to get through ?
James,
Yes that is the official announcement , it has also been said that is the wrong flying ‘change over code /message’ so it should have rung alarm bells.
Yes, we are told, he did climb to 45,000 & then dropped to 20,000, eventually down to 5,000ft.
Now we get another thread about the sabotaged airliner just when the previous one was getting interesting with the announcement that Allianz, the German insurance company, was paying out today $100 million to Malaysia for the loss of its plane and its 239 victims.
The company could only have done so if some important player guaranteed the payments, and it seems to have been Beijing which is having all kinds of problems with the relatives of the victims.
China would only have done so if it knows that the plane was destroyed, and will not be found.
This is supported by its Ministry of State Security announcing in a most unprecedented manner that none of its victims could have been involved in any terrorism. Of course, there is a first time for almost anything.
Looks like it knows who did the sabotage, and the first place to look would be by checking the passenger manifests for both this flight and the Asiana Flight 214 to see if any passenger or passengers were on them both – what I shall now be doing.
Will attempt no more now for fear that this post like several others will be prevented from appearing.
Very sensible theory here. Not discounted by preprogrammed diversion, as far as I can see – perhaps supported by it;
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/
See we have pilots here. True for you?
Ba’al Zevul (Хождение В Народ!)
19 Mar, 2014 – 11:27 am
That theory has a logical problem.
If there is an emergency because of fire why wouldnt he land in Butterworth or Penang intl.?
Butterworth doesnt have any obstacles and it is an airforce port open 24×365. He was flying directly above butterworth. Why would he want to fly another 200 miles if there was an airport directly below his flight route?
Second logical problem: the plane was too heavy for landing. First thing a pilot does before landing is opening the fuel tanks. If he didnt do that then he wouldnt have wanted to land.
However, if he did it, the plane wouldnt have had fuel for another 6 hours.
Solution: there hadnt been any kind of intention to land.
Theory debunked.
This is the FIRST time in history of flight insurance that an insurance company (german Allianz) is paying for dead PAX before they were officially declared as being dead.
Other than that there is the only other possibility that the government did already declare them as being dead but the gov didnt tell that to the media deliberately.
That would suggest that they know much more than they are telling us.
BB.
I agree with you about there not being a fire…because of the lack of phone calls, but not about landing.
IF, the plane flew to DG it would have done almost 3 hours flying so could have landed & refilled to fly on.
Plus, had the flying height been, as suggested, 5,000 more fuel would have been burnt up.
See my link posted earlier;
http://www.cabaltimes.com/2014/03/12/ma370-redirected-to-diego-garcia/
Ideation
A wish for a different explanation from the obvious.
The obvious explanation of the events in the Ukraine is that Zionists including the loop of Saudi Arabia, have swapped control Russian involvement in the Mediterranean at Syria, for Russian annexation of the Crimea so that they can remove Assad and get their sticky fingers on Syria.
The obvious explanation for the Malaysian plane going missing is Obama’s interest in the Pacific. What do the zio-banksters of the Pacific want him to do? Obviously not bankrupt or upset China. The rise of China and the Far East is a creation of the Zio-banksters by which to dis-empower us Europeans, those US jobless citizens, and those very wealthy oil-sheikh pawns, who threaten their mad ideology to re-create the cult of Judea.
I agree with Kenneth Sorensen that the disappearance of the plane tempts us to imagine a repetition of 9/11 to create a new war on Terror zone in Obama’s new, Pacific area of operations. However, because I always believe the opposite of what liars try to get me to believe, I think that USUKIS want us to take our eyes off the ball, which is the disabling of Muslim countries in the Middle-East and the re-colonisation by ISUSUK of Africa.
Bluebird – if there was a fire he may not have been to jettison fuel?
But knowing this area,a little, I agree Butterworth is much nearer. But is it an international airport or a military base? Anyway Penang is so close by it must have been an option. They would have much better facilities for dealing with an emergency than Langkawi.
The wired article is plausible but could there really have been a failure of all communication systems:
“There was most likely a fire or electrical fire. In the case of fire the first response if to pull all the main busses and restore circuits one by one until you have isolated the bad one.
If they pulled the busses the plane indeed would go silent. It was probably a serious event and they simply were occupied with controlling the plane and trying to fight the fire”
Why would anyone do this? couldn’t he have fired off at least one SOS before closing down electrical systems?
Looks like finding the passenger manifest for Asiana Flight 214 will be rather difficult since it apparently doesn’t exist.
When I google for it, I only get images of the result – pictures of the plane which experienced those two fires while landing, photos of all kinds of relatives and survivors, even The NTSB claiming the the pilots were called ‘Sum Ting Wong’, ‘Wi To Low’, and “Ho Lee Fuk’, No image of any actual manifest.
Might well explain why the FAA fined it $500,000 recently for not being informative and supportive enough of those who were alarmed by the fiasco – what Malaysia, thanks to Beijing’s assistance, is doing its best to avoid now.
Playing the devils advocate, I would like to say that there could be a problem with Bluebirds statement:
He was flying directly above butterworth. Why would he want to fly another 200 miles if there was an airport directly below his flight route?
– because a pilot who has lost engine-thrust is concerned with taking a smooth effortless glide down towards something that is right before him, and not necessarily in making anymore sharp U-turns or down-spiralling.
Also, if he had lost communication he couldn’t…..communicate with Butterworth, which is a military base, which would very much appreciate any incoming traffic to identify itself beforehand. He might very well have felt more comfortably by an airfield that was ahead of him, and to which he could make a quiet descent. But it’s very surprising that no debris has been found along this path.
Sorensen
Debunked!
The U-turn happend more than 30 minutes earlier than he arrived in butterworth/penang.
More than enough time to glide smoothly either towards butterworth airforce base or to penang international and also at the same time to reduce weight by opening the fuel tanks.
He did never intend to land there at that time.
He/ or the person controlling that flight, must have had a totally different intention …. if they werent shot down by their own airforce earlier on.
Thanks for the expert input. From the wired piece;
“The captain did not turn back to Kuala Lampur because he knew he had 8,000-foot ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier toward Langkawi, which also was closer.”
If he had preprogrammed an escape route, might he not have picked Langkawi for those reasons? Why not Butterworth? Because it’s a MATZ, maybe? I see 18/36 at Butterworth is only 8000′ long, while Langkawi is 13000′ – would give him more error room, I’d have thought, as a 777 needs over 2Km (~6600 feet).
Re. the fuel tanks: point taken, but if he’d made the decision to go to Lankawi, he wouldn’t have jettisoned immediately…before he did, unconsciousness /death had supervened.
However, chances are we’ll never know.
Can any say what powers the planes headlights ?
Because if the multiple sightings over the Maldives are true, all lights were said to be blazing on the aircraft,which is what first got their attention .
I’d say that showed the aircraft was preparing to land.
Trowbridge
‘…even The NTSB claiming the the pilots were called ‘Sum Ting Wong’, ‘Wi To Low’, and “Ho Lee Fuk’
Trowbridge, are you sure about that? These names were a hoax played upon Bay Area Fox Affiliate KTVU, whose newsreader read them out on air. You can see the footage here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/12/asiana-pilots-fake-names-racist_n_3588569.html
I hate to say it, but it is very funny, albeit in extremely poor taste.
Langkawi has 8000 ft runway according to that site. There are confusing statistics.
However, Langkawi is open from 9am to 4pm ONLY and the runway pkus the airport is closed at night.
http://www.theairdb.com/airport/LGK.html
I suggest to check if there are any runway lights at all on langkawi runway. I seriously doubt so. However, the airport is closed at night and there is nobody to turn on the lights if there are any.
Penang runway is 11.000 ft. and Penang airport is open 24 hours.
There is no reason whatsoever to ignore butterworth or penang in case of an emergency in the middle of the night.
The Allianz insurance payout must be the quickest insurance payout in history !
03/19/2014 11:30
Allianz Insurer Starts Pay-Outs On Missing Malaysian Airliner Claims
Deutsche Welle
Allianz Insurer Starts Pay-Outs On Missing Malaysian Airliner Claims
German insurance company Allianz has started making payments on claims related to missing Malaysian Airline flight MH370. The company says it is seeking to complete claims payments by the end of the week. Allianz and other co-reinsurers of the Malaysian Airlines aviation hull and liability policy had.
German insurance company Allianz has started making payments on claims related to missing Malaysian Airline flight MH370. The company says it is seeking to complete claims payments by the end of the week.
Allianz and other co-reinsurers of the Malaysian Airlines aviation hull and liability policy had made initial payments linked to the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, the German insurance company announced late on Tuesday.
The company, which is Malaysia Airlines’ lead insurer, were confirming an earlier report in the German business daily Handelsblatt. In its Wednesday edition, Handelsblatt reported that payments in the case would amount to about $100 million (72 million euros) for the aircraft and the 239 people on board.
Allianz declined to comment on the exact sum of claims and how much of it would be passed on to other insurers in the consortium.
“This is in agreement with the insurance broker, Willis, and is in line with normal market practice and our contractual obligations where an aircraft is reported missing,” Allianz said in a statement.”
So, there’s no time limit on a missing aircraft, all it needs is that word, ‘missing’ ???
Pull the other one Allianz, whom I might add , are my own insurers !