Theories on the missing plane?

[BanditVol]

That would take cooperation from the Pakistani military at the highest level - I just don't see it. My guess is that satellite photos of Yemen are being closely scrutinized...

I wouldn't rule that out at all!  The ISI (Pakistani intelligence service) created the Taliban and continues to play a double game in Afghanistan to this very day.  After all, Osama was hiding in plain site not far from the "Pakistani West Point", right?

Having said that, it would be nearly impossible to hide the plane landing in those two locations, because we have eyes all over them.  Maybe some dusty strip off the beaten path?

I think we can rule out Yemen...the latest thinking is that it was out of range, based on satellite data.  And for that matter, Pak was at the extreme edge of the range and the plane would have had to fly over India to get to Pak anyway.

See the map at the bottom of this link:

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/03/world/malaysia-flight-map/index.html?hpt=bosread

To get to Pak, which appears to be at the edge of the range in that map, they would have to fly over India and what are the odds that the Indians would not notice the plane flying over their country, lol.  You think maybe the Indians would like to catch the Pakistanis in the act, perhaps?   

Burma/Myanmar is pretty lawless, so that's an option, but I think it's in the Indian Ocean somewhere.

Looking at the map again, the island of Java in Indonesia would be a strong possibility, but one would think radar covers most of the coast of that island...perhaps there are gaps though.

[BanditVol]

Hot off the presses...Malaysian PM now says they think it was definitely deliberate and it's now considered certain that the aircraft headed west...the satellite data has been confirmed.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/15/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/index.html?iid=article_sidebar

"This new satellite information has a significant impact on the nature and scope of the search operation," he said.
Investigators, he said, have confirmed by looking at the raw satellite data that the plane in question was the Malaysia Airlines jet.
The same conclusion was reached by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, the British Air Accidents Investigation Branch and the Malaysian authorities, all of whom were working separately with the same data, he said.

"Due to the type of satellite data, we are unable to confirm the precise location of the plane when it last made contact with the satellite," Najib said.
Because the northern parts of the traffic corridor include some tightly guarded airspace over India, Pakistan, and even some U.S. installations in Afghanistan, U.S. authorities believe it more likely the aircraft crashed into waters outside of the reach of radar south of India, one U.S. official told CNN. If it had flown farther north, it's likely it would have been detected by radar.

[BanditVol]

Pirate...the article I link in the previous post states that there is evidence the plane climbed to 43,000 feet.  The limit on altitude is ... I think, 30-35,000 feet?  Can't recall exactly...but I do know it's mostly related to pressurization issues.  Would a plane at a higher altitude than the reg still have better range?  I am pretty sure it would, though the gain might be marginal.

Malaysian military radar showed the plane climbing to 45,000 feet -- which is above its approved altitude limit -- soon after disappearing from civilian radar screens and then dropping to 23,000 feet before climbing again, the official said.

[BanditVol]

Wanna help with the investigation? 

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/11/us/malaysia-airlines-plane-crowdsourcing-search/index.html?hpt=bosread

[Navol]

Pirate...the article I link in the previous post states that there is evidence the plane climbed to 43,000 feet.  The limit on altitude is ... I think, 30-35,000 feet?  Can't recall exactly...but I do know it's mostly related to pressurization issues.  Would a plane at a higher altitude than the reg still have better range?  I am pretty sure it would, though the gain might be marginal.

Malaysian military radar showed the plane climbing to 45,000 feet -- which is above its approved altitude limit -- soon after disappearing from civilian radar screens and then dropping to 23,000 feet before climbing again, the official said.

Operational ceiling for the A/C is around 41000 feet; at that point, the speed range between stalling out, due to low speed and totally losing control effectiveness due to high speed is about 10 MPH; not a place you want to be.

[BanditVol]

Pirate...the article I link in the previous post states that there is evidence the plane climbed to 43,000 feet.  The limit on altitude is ... I think, 30-35,000 feet?  Can't recall exactly...but I do know it's mostly related to pressurization issues.  Would a plane at a higher altitude than the reg still have better range?  I am pretty sure it would, though the gain might be marginal.

Malaysian military radar showed the plane climbing to 45,000 feet -- which is above its approved altitude limit -- soon after disappearing from civilian radar screens and then dropping to 23,000 feet before climbing again, the official said.

Found it on page 23 in the link.

http://www.deltava.org/library/B777%20Manual.pdf

They supposedly had 7.5 hours of fuel left...what altitude and cruising speed that was based on, I have no idea.  But if they cruised at 45,000 feet, the optimal cruise speed was around 455 knots (extrapolating from 41000 feet).  Chop an hour off the 7.5 of fuel for descent and landing and uncertainty in what cruise altitude it was calculated at, and they could have gone about 2950 nautical miles...round up to 3000 for convenience.

Looking at the map and last known location, they could indeed have reached Yemen or Somalia...or flown due west to the south of India and turned north to just barely make the southern coast of Iran.

The two men with false passports were Iranian nationals.

Hmmmmmm.....

[GreggO]

Definitely the Langoliers.

About an hour after I read that this morning, it hit me!         

[BanditVol]

Operational ceiling for the A/C is around 41000 feet; at that point, the speed range between stalling out, due to low speed and totally losing control effectiveness due to high speed is about 10 MPH; not a place you want to be.

Well that would extend the range based on 6.5 hours of fuel by about 42 nautical miles...so might as well just say 3000 nautical miles is a conservative estimate of range including a 45 min reserve.  Hijackers might not care about the reserve.

Also looks like the final heading was 280 or 10 deg north of west, FWIW...they could easily have changed heading.

[BanditVol]

ZBR...?   

[BanditVol]

One last thing....they are saying that the plane had to be ON the red line at 8:10 AM Malaysian time:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MH370_last_ping_corridors.jpg

That means they trust the clock on the plane to be accurate to at least a 1,000th of a second.  The time delay between the red line and the satellite is about 120 milliseconds. 

If the satellite data is accurate the plane would seem much more likely to be on the northern red line...perhaps flying through Burma/Myanmar and then skimming the Himalyan mountains IF it was piloted the whole way.

If it's on the southern line, then it would have to be because it wandered around to avoid detection and then turned north to Indonesia...otherwise it has no where to land.

That's my 0.02 anyway....

[TheRealOrange]

India speaks up: http://my.news.yahoo.com/mas-jet-couldn-t-flown-over-airspace-says-015126330.html.  I agree.

[BanditVol]

India speaks up: http://my.news.yahoo.com/mas-jet-couldn-t-flown-over-airspace-says-015126330.html.  I agree.

Yes, but...(see below) could they have skimmed through the small part of India east of Bangladesh, next to Myanmar, and then skimmed the Himalayan mountains?  That at least seems possible to me, though the Himalyans are supposed to be fairly dangerous to fly over due to updrafts and turbulence.

Senior Indian military officers admitted there were "a few gaps" in India's civil and military radar networks, but stressed it would be "virtually impossible" for a jetliner to fly undetected across the Indian mainland.
"The five Airports Authority of India radars at Delhi, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Mumbai are integrated with IAF's air defence network. The possibility is far-fetched," said an officer.

[BanditVol]

It does seem more likely to be in the Indian Ocean, as some American officials stated just this morning.  But I wouldn't rule the land route out completely.

They were saying yesterday they might be able to get an ACARS ping on another satellite, which would allow them to triangulate and nail down a time and position to within ~ 100 km.  That would pretty much clear things up if they can do it.

[midtnvol]

Having called off the search in the initial area fairly early (a weeklong search is not very long for such a major disaster), it makes me wonder if the powers that be actually know where this plane is. If it is in a hanger or runway somewhere then I would suspect some kind of clandestine operation by a bunch of Navy Seals is underway. That being said, I really think it's in the drink.